


The End of the Line

by ficbear



Series: Gunsel Sidestories [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Age Difference, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bondage, Clothed Male Naked Male, Come Swallowing, Dildos, Dom/sub, Femmephobia, M/M, Minor Character Death, Non-Consensual Violence, Nonmonogamous Relationship, Older Man/Younger Man, Oral Sex, Organized Crime, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Phone Sex, Self-Bondage, Teasing, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-09 00:46:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 34,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3229907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ficbear/pseuds/ficbear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His eyes were hard and bright, and his face was like a stone mask, solid and cold and unbreakable. He looked like he could have happily thrown that boy and all the rest of us off the pier without batting an eyelid. I remember thinking: <em>He's like me, deep down. He's like me, but worse</em>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

These things always start with a potted history or by jumping right into the middle of a mysterious anecdote. Well, I don't go in for mystery. I'm just going to give you the facts. If you look at the file the police have got on me, it'll go something like: Lee Sheppard, aged thirty-one. Five foot eight, twelve stone, yellowish-brown skin, black hair. With the organisation for fifteen years, on Ray's personal staff for six years, and involved with him for five of those. That's the bare bones. Now let's get onto the meat of it.

Sometimes when I talk to guys from out of town, they say: _So how did you get mixed up in all of this, then?_ And I shake my head and shrug, because the answer is that if you grew up here and you didn't have a ticket to a university town, the only way you wouldn't end up working for Mr Middleton is if you had too many scruples or not enough brains. Around here, you leave school and you decide: do I want to scrape by washing pots at the working men's club, or do I want to take home three times a normal wage just for fetching and carrying? You'd have to be a fool to pass that up. A fool, or a martyr.

But if I say it was the money, I'm only telling you half the story. Decent pay is why I joined up, but structure is why I stayed. One thing you learn very quickly in this group is that Mr Middleton doesn't tolerate sloppiness. The twins don't tolerate it either, and neither do their lieutenants, and so on and so forth, all the way down to the guys that hand out the jobs. They want reliable staff. They want brains and guts, obviously, but that's not enough. You've got to be precise, and methodical, and consistent, and that suits me down to the ground. I've been called a lot of things in my time, because of the way my mind works: a robot, a machine, a clockwork monkey. I like things regular and orderly. I like routine. Maybe I get a bit upset if my routine's disturbed. When I joined the organisation, no-one made fun of my tendencies, no-one rolled their eyes, no-one called me a robot. They just put me to work doing things that needed a sharp eye and a steady hand. As it happens, that's the most crucial work of all.

 

* * *

 

It's hard to know where to start, if I'm going to tell you how me and Ray got together. I mean, in one sense you could say it all started when I first joined up, because if I'd gone the other way and gotten a respectable job, mine and Ray's paths would never have crossed in the first place. So maybe it was the day one of my classmates took me into the warehouse where his brother worked, and introduced me to the foreman as a kid who knew how to work hard and keep his mouth shut. Maybe all of this started that first morning I spent loading lorries with heavy boxes I never looked in, and the next nine years were just one long warm-up for the main event.

Or maybe it was the first time I laid eyes on Ray. I'd been working for the organisation for a couple of years, and I'd heard plenty of stories about him and Vic, but I'd never seen either of them in person. Just the odd photo in the paper, with Mr Middleton and Ray smiling at the camera while Vic looked away, and a headline underneath like _LOCAL ENTERTAINMENT MAGNATE CELEBRATES OPENING NIGHT IN STYLE_. Ray always looked weirdly artificial in photos, like a sort of well-dressed, perfectly-sculpted mannequin. When I saw him in real life for the first time, moving and talking and laughing, it blew me away. I only caught a little glimpse of him, walking out of a club across the road from where I was standing guard, but it was enough to stick in my mind. I can still see it all now, if I close my eyes. Ray's long grey overcoat, and that pale brown suit underneath it. The streetlight glinting on his watch and his tie-pin. The way he smiled at the boy on his arm, and the way the boy laughed as they got into the car together. I'd heard all about Ray and his pickups, but it seemed a million miles away from me and the guys I'd been involved with. It seemed like another world. I took that sight and filed it away with all of the other strange, striking things I'd seen on the job, and I gave it about as much significance as seeing a film star on your way home from work. It's unusual, and interesting, and it makes a good story if you're trying to impress someone, but that's about it.

Now, if you ask Ray, he'll tell you that the first time he saw me was very early on, when I was still working in that warehouse. Well, I don't buy it. He's no fool, but he loves a good story, and he's not too fussy about the truth of what he tells people as long as it sounds dramatic. So, yeah, officially he spotted me when I was sixteen, and he came down to oversee a bit of the work one day. Officially he could tell even then, just by looking at me, that I had potential. Well, if you believe that he saw me back then, but for some strange reason he waited nine whole years to do anything about it, then I've got a bridge to sell you. I'll never know for sure, but I reckon the first time he laid eyes on me was the day he interviewed me for this job.

It was an odd time for the organisation, and especially for the old-hands on my team. Everyone was talking about succession-planning, and for the guys who'd been around for thirty or forty years, it was like snow in July. Things had never been stable enough around here for anyone to bother about succession, and now here we were talking about deputies and ten year plans and phased retirements. I didn't know any different, but to the old-timers, it was proof they were living in a golden age. For me, it was an opportunity I didn't even know I wanted. Now, this is one of those areas where the difference between Vic and Ray really becomes apparent. When the twins got the order from Mr Middleton to start thinking about who was going to support them after he retired, Vic just picked out half a dozen guys he'd already worked with, each with a useful specialty, and handed them their new jobs on a plate. The whole thing was wrapped up in a couple of days. But Ray, he did things carefully and formally. He gave the command to all his neighbourhood bosses: "Send me your best man—and if you've got two, send me the youngest." Then he called us in, one by one, and gave us a friendly, easy-going, and thoroughly merciless grilling.

My interview was at ten o'clock at night, in the back-office of one of our host clubs. The place was called the Fig Leaf, and it was pretty low-end. Mr Middleton owned plenty of boy bars, most of them with hefty price-tags attached, but Ray chose the cheapest and nastiest place on the books. It had threadbare red velvet on the walls and the floor, drink-stained leopard print cushions on the sofas, and tired-looking boys who seemed to float around in a smog of hairspray, perfume, and cigarette smoke. It wasn't the kind of place I'd go for fun, but then again, neither were any other nightclubs, full stop. To me, the Fig Leaf was just another loud, dingy box full of people. To the other hopefuls waiting alongside me, it was either heaven or hell, depending on which one you listened to.

"Look at them…" the guy next to me murmured. He was watching a pair of red-haired boys who were sitting at one of the nearby tables, and they were eyeballing him right back, like a couple of starving cats watching a sparrow. "If I get this job, I might as well just tithe ten percent of my wages to this place, I'm going to be down here so often."

"You don't think he'd want us to work out of a place like this regularly, do you?" The guy opposite me furrowed his brow a bit, and glanced at me. "I mean, he's got to set us up with a proper office, hasn't he?"

"Who knows." I shrugged. "You'd have to ask him that, wouldn't you?"

"Well, it's—" the guy started to say, and then the staff door opened, and a youngish guy in a drab brown suit stuck his head through the doorway, and called "You're next, Sheppard."

I followed him down the corridor, and when we got to the door at the end, he patted me on the shoulder and said "Break a leg."

The office was just as dingy as the club itself, only kitted out in mahogany and green leather instead of gilt and red velvet. Ray looked completely out of place, sitting there in crisp grey pinstripe that looked like it'd been cut that morning. Then he glanced up from the file in his hands, with what looked like pure sleaze in his eyes, and suddenly he seemed completely at home. He was giving me that same smile I'd seen all those years ago, when I first laid eyes on him: easy-going, confident, casual, unfeeling. I felt the same tug of attraction I'd felt back then, but I put it aside. I was there to get myself a job, and not by fluttering my eyelashes, either. I introduced myself and sat down when he told me to, and I didn't pay any attention to the little flare of excitement sparking inside me.

He spent a good long while looking at the papers in his hand, studying them slowly, as if he'd never seen them before. I just sat and watched him. I'd never been up close with him before, and I was grateful for the opportunity to look at him uninterrupted. I watched his face, mainly, but sometimes his hands as he turned the pages. His eyes were very hard, very lively, and very quick. His hands looked like they were tailor-made to break bones. I could have watched him all night and not gotten bored.

"You're twenty-five, is that right?" he said, without looking up.

"Twenty-four, sir. I don't turn twenty-five for another month."

He glanced at me, and gave me a funny kind of smile. "You're very young, compared to the other guys who've put themselves forward."

"Yes, sir."

"Don't you think your lack of experience puts you at a disadvantage?"

"No, sir." I shook my head. "You give younger men preferential treatment, everyone knows that."

Ray laughed, and then I realised what I'd implied. That's the thing with talking to Ray: even if you start out wanting to play it straight, he pulls you off-track without you even noticing. I was upset with myself for hinting that I was up for a bit of quid pro quo, so I stayed silent, and just let Ray watch me. He kept his eyes on mine, much longer than people can usually look at me without breaking off or glancing away. I enjoyed it. I felt like he wasn't seeing the whole of me, obviously, but he was seeing enough for it to be a novelty.

"The chief of your team recommended you very highly," he said, smiling again. "Why do you think that is?"

"Because I get the job done, sir." I replied as politely as I could, but I didn't bother trying to return his smile. I knew how unnerving my attempts at smiling and looking friendly could be, so I decided to just be my natural self, and see if it worked.

"Is that right?" Ray put the file down, and leaned back in his chair.

"Yes, sir. Whoever I work for, they always say the same thing: he's an odd one, but he gets the job done."

"What do you enjoy doing?"

"Sir?"

"What kind of work do you find rewarding?"

"Solo jobs. Especially driving and shooting, sir."

"You like guns, do you?"

I shook my head. "No, sir, not in themselves. It's the actual shooting I like."

"Do you like watching people suffer?"

"No, sir," I said, without thinking. "It doesn't matter what I'm shooting at. People or tin cans, it's all the same to me, sir." Then I realised what I'd said, and how even in an organisation like this, there were some lines you weren't supposed to cross, and I resigned myself then and there to not getting the job. He wouldn't want someone like me, I reckoned. He'd want someone who felt bad when you were supposed to feel bad, and felt good when you were supposed to feel good, and thought all the normal stuff you were supposed to think. He had half a dozen of those normal guys waiting outside, too, so what chance did I have?

"Alright, then," he said. "We're done, you can go."

"Yes, sir." I nodded and got to my feet.

"You'll get a phone call in a couple of days." He met my eyes again, and smiled. "Don't leave town."

 

* * *

 

Before Ray, I'd had two other relationships, if you can call them that. When I was nineteen, I got involved with a boy that worked in a café on the pier. He was a nice kid, and fairly good-looking, but I couldn't give him what he was after. He wanted a bit of rough, someone to hold him down and call him names, and even though I could play the part if I really pushed myself, I didn't get enough of a kick out of it to keep going. That lasted three months, before I called it off. I'd gotten attached, and I felt bad about it afterwards, but it was a relief not to have to go through the motions anymore. After that, I promised myself I'd never get involved with anyone who wanted me to have the upper hand, ever again.

The second time, it was a guy I met doing the collections. He was the junior manager in one of the shops on my route, and he started chatting me up almost as soon as I set foot in the place. I was twenty-two, and he was twenty-nine. That guy suited me a lot better, but it still wasn't right. The sex was great, I couldn't complain about that. He liked to tie me up and smack me around a bit, and sometimes he'd keep me right on the edge of coming for what felt like hours. While we were actually at it, I was happy. But beforehand, and afterwards, he used to spoil it with a load of drippy nonsense that put me right off. He only wanted to be in control when we were having sex, and the rest of the time he acted like we were exactly equal, like there was no hierarchy at all. It drove me mad. Eventually it spoiled the sex, too, because I couldn't get the other stuff he'd said and done out of my head, even while we were going at it. I put up with it for six months, before I pulled the plug.

After that, I didn't bother even thinking about relationships for a long time. I decided that I didn't want to settle for anything less than a good fit, and the way I saw it, a good fit was pretty unlikely. So for the next three years I spent all my spare time focussed on me, and me alone. All of my sex drive went into the twice-weekly ritual I'd developed for myself way back when I was a teenager, which I'd still be doing now, if I hadn't met Ray. These days I've still got a routine, but the timing's different, and the rules have changed, and most importantly of all, it's not me that thought it all up.

So after that interview in the Fig Leaf, I went straight home and took care of myself the way I'd been doing for years. I took all the excitement and tension that a normal guy would get out of his system in a bar or a brothel, and turned it into a long, painstaking, perfect solo performance.

It went the way it always did: I took out my gear first, piece by piece, and laid it all out on top of a towel on the bed, spread out neatly like a set of handyman's tools. It wasn't much of a collection, by anyone's standards. Just three lengths of rope, a jar of lube, and two leather dildos. Simple tastes, Ray says. Once I'd set out the equipment, I had a long shower, and scrubbed myself clean with the really harsh soap I saved for these nights. Then I dried myself and went back through into the bedroom, and set about tying myself up. I used the same approach every time: ankles first, bound together and tied to the bottom-right leg of the bedstead, and then my left wrist, bound to the top-left corner of the headboard. My right hand, I had to forget about altogether. I needed it free, obviously, and at the same time I needed to think about it as someone else's hand entirely. I imagined a phantom right hand, tied up as securely as the left. My real right hand became another man's as soon as I took the lid off the lube.

That night, it became Ray's hand. I wasn't shy about taking the idea of someone I'd met in real life and crowbarring them into my fantasies. My fingertips were his fingertips, as I dipped them in lube and rubbed them around the rim of my ass. I imagined his eyes watching me, as I pushed a couple of fingers into myself. I didn't know what he'd say, I couldn't imagine it fully enough to fill in that detail yet, but I knew how he'd look. There'd be a smile on his lips, and complete coldness in his eyes. I gave myself a good long while to get used to those fingers, and then a little bit longer, just to keep myself waiting. Then I pulled my fingers out, picked up the bigger of the two dildos, and covered it in lube. This was always the bit where I struggled to keep my concentration. The leather was colder than skin would have been, and that always threw me off. I had to get the lubing-up over with quickly, and get the dildo inside me as fast as possible without hurting myself, so my body could start heating the thing up and I could get my mind back onto the fantasy underpinning it all. So I was careful with myself, but ruthless. I pushed it in slowly and steadily, so I didn’t lose a single inch of progress to false starts and wrong moves. When it was finally in all the way, and my body had drawn tight around the notch at the bottom, I closed my eyes and really got to work.

My fantasies used to be pretty far-fetched, when I was younger. As a teenager I'd been obsessed with Ancient Rome, so my first sexual daydreams were full of Roman soldiers and emperors and praetorians, but as I got older, the scenarios I dreamed up became a lot more concrete. By the time I hit my mid-twenties, if I'm honest, my fantasies were as much about the kind of relationship I wanted as the kind of sex. It was always older men in nice suits, sometimes rough and violent, sometimes cold and mocking, but always completely in control. That night, it was about Ray, and the back-office of the Fig Leaf. I thought about him tying me up on top of that desk, and fucking me so hard that all the guys outside could hear me yelping. I thought about him bringing me up to the edge of coming, and then keeping me there, over and over. I thought about him holding my throat in one hand and my cock in the other, and squeezing the breath and the pleasure out of me equally cruelly. I'm lucky I lasted more than two minutes, thinking about all of that.


	2. Chapter 2

"Lee," a voice said, as soon as I stepped through the door. "Over here."

There were three guys sitting around a table across from the bar, and the one in the middle was waving his hand at me. Ray must have given him my photo, along with the others', when he'd told him to arrange the meeting. I didn't recognise the guy's face, but I knew his voice. This was Sidney, the oldest of my new team-mates, the one who'd rung me to give me my orders. He looked exactly as you'd expect a hand-picked subordinate of Ray's to look: tall, handsome, very well-dressed, and more than a bit shifty. He had short black hair, skin a shade darker than mine, and long, delicate hands that looked as if he'd never done a hard day's work in his life.

"Sit down," he said, pointing at the chair across from his.

The other two introduced themselves as I sat down. The one on my left, Nicholas, was tanned and muscular, with a glossy blond quiff and a vacant smile that made him look like a physique model. The one next to him, Caspar, was tall and dark-skinned, with a handsome face, gaunt cheeks, and deep shadows under his eyes.

"Ray won't be here until half nine," Sidney said, with a glossy-lipped smile. "So we've got plenty of time to get to know each other."

I stayed quiet while they talked about themselves, just listening and making mental notes of the key facts. Sidney was the oldest, at thirty-five, and he'd been with the organisation since he was twenty, starting off as a renter, and then moving up into management as he got older. Nicholas was thirty-three, and he'd been working as muscle for various groups up and down the country since he was a teenager. He'd come here when he was in his mid-twenties, chasing after a boy he was soft on, and then stuck around after the fling fizzled out. Caspar was the youngest, apart from me, at thirty-two. He was a back-office type, and he'd been with the group for ten years, three of which he'd spent inside.

"And what about you?" Caspar said, once he'd finished his story.

"Yes, you're very quiet, Lee." Sidney gave me a smile I couldn't quite read. "Why don't you tell us about yourself?"

"Not much to tell, really." I shrugged. I was hoping they'd be happy with that, but they just kept on looking at me, waiting silently and smiling a little bit, so after a few seconds I gave in and started talking. I've got a standard spiel that I always do in these situations, which is basically just a list of who I've worked for and when, with a few jobs I make a point of mentioning specifically because they tend to get the other guys talking. Say the right name, and suddenly it's all _Oh you were there for the clean-up after the Regent, were you? Well I remember when it happened, I was driving past there when the building went up, you could see it half a mile away…_ Et cetera, et cetera, and if I'm lucky I don't have to say another word for a good half hour. Only with this lot, there was none of that. They didn't let up with the attention for a single second. Caspar kept asking me little clarifying questions, and every so often Sidney would make a joke or pun on what I'd said, and the whole time Nicholas was giving me that gormless smile and nodding like we were old friends. After fifteen minutes of that, I felt like I'd been under an X-ray machine.

"You boys look like you're having fun," Ray's voice said from behind me, and when I looked around, he was standing there with his hands in his pockets and a smile on his face. It was as if he'd appeared out of thin air.

"Oh yes, we're getting on like a house on fire," Sidney said, standing up. The others stood up too, and I followed suit, but I was slow about it, and I lagged a couple of seconds behind the rest of them. I hadn't realised we were doing things this formally, and I kicked myself inside, for making a misstep so early on.

"Sit down," Ray said, and we all sat. "You've all been briefed on what this job is, haven't you?" he asked, knowing that we had.

We all nodded, and said "Yes, sir."

"Tonight I want to go into a bit more detail." He sat down on the empty chair in-between me and Sidney, and gave us all a broad smile. "So we might be here a while. Go and fetch some drinks, Lee, before we get started."

I stood up again, and listened to each of the other guys telling me what he wanted: vodka and orange for Caspar, rum and coke for Nicholas, gin and tonic for Sidney. When I turned to Ray, he said "Water for me, someone's got to keep you boys under control."

Out of habit, I got my wallet out while the bartender was mixing the drinks. He just looked at me and laughed. That day was the last time I ever got my wallet out in the Bay Tree, or in any of Mr Middleton's other joints, for that matter. From then on, the staff knew all four of us by sight, as well as they knew the twins themselves. We didn't pay for anything. Drinks, food, clothes, boys: everything was free, on tap, indefinitely, so long as we behaved ourselves.

When I got back to the table, Ray was talking to Nicholas about calisthenics, and as I set the drinks down, he looked up at me and said "Right then, let's get down to business."

I sat down again, and listened to him talk. He repeated a bit of the blurb we'd all heard in the initial briefing, about how he was going to be training us up in bits and pieces of what he does, and then he went into a lot more detail about who was going to be getting which jobs delegated to them. It was straightforward stuff, nothing you couldn't have figured out by looking at our files and doing a bit of thinking, but I didn't mind. I just sat and sipped my water, and watched him. He used his hands a lot as he talked. He'd sweep them out towards his sides when he was describing something big, and pinch his fingers together he was getting down to the nitty-gritty, and put his hands flat on the table, palms down, when he was laying down the law.

"But of course," he said, picking up his glass, "if any of you display any unexpected talents, I'm happy to be flexible."

He glanced at me, and I looked right back at him, wondering if he could tell how much I fancied him. It didn't matter either way, I reckoned, but I was curious.

 

* * *

 

Ray made a real pass at me on my first proper day in the job. I was driving him back from a meeting with some representatives from another group, and he was in very high spirits, laughing and joking, like he'd just closed a major deal.

"Well, that was over quicker than I expected," he said, from the back of the car. "Plenty of time to go out and celebrate."

I knew that was my cue to say something cute and sycophantic, but I didn't take it. I just said "Yes, sir," and kept driving.

Ray laughed very quietly, and tried again. "You're free after this, aren't you? Why don't you come out for a drink with me?"

I met his eyes briefly in the mirror. "I don't drink, sir."

"Well," he said, "let me buy you an orange juice, then."

I weighed up what I wanted, what I thought Ray was offering, and what would be good for my career. "Are you asking me, sir," I said, "or ordering me?"

There was a shrug in his voice as he said "Asking."

I glanced at him again in the mirror. He was still smiling steadily. "Then I'll pass."

He laughed again, and didn't say a word for the rest of the drive.

I never mentioned it to any of the other guys, but I could imagine their reactions. _Why d'you turn him down? It's a good time and a bit of extra cash, isn't it?_ Well, even back then the organisation paid me enough that I didn't need the money, and I wasn't looking for a good time. I've got no appetite for little dribs and drabs of affection. I don’t graze. For me, it's a full meal or nothing. When I say it like that, though, it sounds as if I was playing hard to get, or like maybe saying no is what made Ray interested in the first place, but I hate that line of thinking. I've heard it from some of Ray's good-time boys, and I don't mind telling you, I reckon that attitude stinks. To my way of thinking, if you want to play around with mind-games like that, you're no better than the coppers who take one of our boys in and lie to him that his friend's ratted him out. To my mind, even if we're up to our necks in dirty business, we at least owe each other honesty.

The thing is, even though I hadn't gone for Ray's offer, from that point onwards everyone acted as if I _had_. They acted as if we _all_ had. Everyone seemed to think we were at it, from the senior staff right down to the cleaners. My second week in the job, I was in the back-office of the Bay Tree, waiting for the manager to show up, and there were a couple of the cigarette boys hanging around in the corridor, gossiping as free and easy as if they thought the place was empty.

"Did you see it last week," a loud, reedy voice said, "when Mr Blake brought his stable in here for a drink?"

"Which Mr Blake?"

The first voice scoffed. "The _nice_ one, who d'you think?"

"I must've been off," the other boy said. "Well, go on then, what are they like?"

"Swimming in money, by the looks of things! And…" The first boy lowered his voice just a bit. "You can tell _exactly_ how they're earning it, too…"

"Mm, go on!"

"You should _see_ them. They look like he picked them up off a _runway_. Well, all except that young one, he's not much to look at."

"Isn't he? I'll bet he goes like the clappers, then."

"Well, he must be good for something," the first boy said, with a giggle. "And it's not going to be using his brains, is it?"

The pair of them erupted into cackling laughter, and then the conversation drifted away from me and my team. I stopped listening, and sat down on the chair opposite the manager's desk. I had a good long think about all of it, while I waited. I tried to piece together what I thought Ray's motives might have been. Why hadn't he picked four plain-looking guys, the mean and burly type, who everyone would've taken seriously? And if we _were_ there just for the sex appeal, why hadn't he given me the boot the minute I said no? I couldn't figure it out. The nearest I got was the idea that maybe he was giving me a bit of time to warm up. I decided then and there that I had to make it clear to Ray, next time I saw him, that I was never going to thaw out. Maybe it'd be the end of the job, but I couldn't string him along. Honesty, like I said before. It's the only thing that separates us from the coppers.

The next time me and Ray were alone, I brought it up. It was the middle of the night, and we were outside one of the warehouses. He'd just sent off the last of the convoy, and I was standing there wondering why he felt like he still needed to do this stuff personally. From what I'd heard, Vic didn't bother with little things like this, and he hadn't done for years. He had a half a dozen perfectly competent guys under him who could handle it, so why waste his time? But Ray couldn't let go. He still had a hand in things he should have been delegating a decade ago, and I was starting to wonder whether he was actually going to give any of it up, once me and the others were fully trained.

"Right then," he said, clapping me on the shoulder. "Time we were both heading home."

I turned to face him, and said "Hang on, sir, there's something I need to talk to you about first."

He gave me a slight smile. "Not getting cold feet, are you?"

"No, sir," I said, shaking my head. "But I reckon you might do, when I've finished."

"Sounds ominous." One of his eyebrows went up, and he laughed a bit. "Go on, then. Let's have it."

"Well, sir," I said, "you made a pass at me the other day in the car, didn't you?" Obviously we both knew he had, but I've found that sometimes you have to phrase things like a question, even if everyone knows it's a statement. Seems to get people's backs up a bit less, if you pretend like you're not sure whether you're right.

"Yes, I did," he said, watching me very steadily. "What about it?"

"I wanted to explain why I turned you down." I paused, and waited to see if he was going to get upset. He didn't. He just smiled, and waited for me to carry on. "It was because I know you're not interested in anything with strings attached, sir."

"Is that right?"

"Yes, sir," I said, nodding. "And I'm not interested in anything casual, so it doesn't matter how good-looking a guy is, I don't get involved unless I know he's up for something serious."

"I see."

"So I wanted to make it clear upfront, sir," I carried on, "in case you were only keeping me around on the off-chance I'd eventually say yes."

"I'll bear that in mind," he said, with a funny kind of smile. "Is that all?"

"Yes, sir."

"Alright, then. Let's get going, shall we?"

"Yes, sir." I was so relieved that I hadn't got the sack, I could have cheered.

"And don't look so grim, Lee," he said, giving my shoulder a squeeze. "You look like you're on your way to a funeral."


	3. Chapter 3

A few weeks after he put the team together, Ray started throwing what he called soirees for us. They were held in the fanciest host club we had, the Second Circle. It was a small place, just a bar on the ground floor and half a dozen private rooms on the first floor, but the boys who worked there brought in enough money that they didn't need more than a handful of clients at a time. One night a month, the club would be closed to the public, and we'd have the free run of the place. The other guys used to bring along their own boys, and all of the club's resident renters would be there too, half to work and half to socialise. So it was wall-to-wall boys, and that meant wall-to-wall chatter. I'm telling you, you get a bunch of renters and good-time boys together, give them an open bar, and you'll be lucky to come out of it with your hearing intact. I used to sit there watching the coloured lights on the walls shifting from red to purple to blue and back again, trying to let the hum of noise wash over me, and usually not getting very far.

At the first party, a couple of the renters tried their luck with me, and I felt like a complete fool when I turned them down. Jimmy, the young one who wears all the leather, was the first one to have a crack, and when I said no thanks, he just shrugged and went over to sit next to Sidney instead. The second one, Yves, took it a lot worse.

"You look like you'd enjoy some company," he said, perching himself on the arm of my chair. He was a good-looking boy. A bit older than me, very pale, but very pretty, with longish black hair, lots of kohl round his eyes, and a glittery black suit that looked like it was made out of broken glass. I could see why he fetched a high price, but still, he was barking up the wrong tree.

"No thanks, I'm alright as I am." I said it as nicely as I could, but I always look like I'm miserable even when I'm perfectly happy, and he took it as an insult.

"Fine," he said, and as he stood up, he muttered "Though _why_ you'd even _be_ here if you're not interested, I've no idea…"

"Because, darling," a sharp voice said beside me, "he's a guest of Ray's, and as such he's entitled to partake or not, as he sees fit."

I looked up and saw Patrick, the guy who heads up the renters operation, standing beside me. He can creep up on you like a cat when he wants to, and neither of us had heard a footstep as he approached. Now he was staring at Yves, with eyes like a pair of razor blades. Patrick didn't frighten me, but I could see why his staff were terrified of him. He was ice-cold, and he had a way of looking at you that made you feel like you were between the points of a set of callipers. You could almost hear him thinking: _If I had to sell you, how would I market you, and what price would I get_? He even looked at me like that, when we were first being introduced, and god knows I'm not the type you'd make any profit on. But after he'd given me the once-over, and figured out that I wasn't buying or selling, he was perfectly nice to me. I think he just saw me as irrelevant, like a pet dog Ray insisted on dragging around with him everywhere.

"Of course, I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by it," Yves said, and if you thought a boy like that couldn't get any paler, you'd be wrong. His eyes were on me as he talked, but his attention was aimed about a foot to my right.

"Why don't you go and see if Nicholas and his friend are lonely?" Patrick said, and the boy scuttled off so fast you'd think he'd been slapped.

Nicholas and his friend didn't look lonely at all, from where I was sitting. They were on one of the big sofas, and Nicholas already had his tie off and his shirt half-undone. The "friend" was an excitable teenager who was all over him like a rash, with one hand inside his shirt, and one hand on his lap. Nicholas always brought really young guys with him, right from that first soiree. They were always short and scrawny, always blond, and they all gave you the same line when you asked them their age: _Oh, I turned eighteen last month!_ Whether he coached them, or whether he really only went after the ones who were freshly-minted, your guess is as good as mine.

Sidney and Caspar were taking things much slower. Sidney had one arm round his own boy, and the other arm round one of the renters, but he hadn't done more than kiss either of them. On the other side of the room, Caspar was talking to Jimmy, chatting him up earnestly enough you'd have thought he was aiming to elope with the kid. And at the far end of the room, there was Ray. He had two of the renters with him, and he was laughing and chatting with them just like you'd expect, but his eyes kept straying to Nicholas and Sidney and Caspar. I think he used the Second Circle like a petri dish. He just wanted to see how we behaved in a playpen full of drink and boys. And how we behaved, or rather how the other three behaved, was basically pretty restrained. They drank, and had a bit of fun with the boys, and maybe got a bit rowdy when we'd had a tough few weeks, but they never got out of line. And me, I just sat and watched, and kept my hands to myself.

About halfway through that first party, Ray called me across to him when I was on my way to the bar for a top-up. He had that thin red-haired renter on his knee, not doing much, just curled up in his lap like an overgrown cat. The boy didn't even look up at me when I approached. He just kept his head laid on Ray's shoulder, and kept his fingers toying with his lapel, like I wasn't even there.

"You can go home if you want to," Ray said, quiet enough that only me and him and the red-haired cat could hear. "If it's not your cup of tea, you don't have to stick around."

I shook my head and said "It's alright, sir, I'll stay."

"I mean it, Lee," he said, and he looked deadly serious about it, too. "I don't want you spending all night being bored out of your mind in here, if you'd rather be somewhere else."

"No, sir, I want to stay here," I said, as serious as he was. "There's nowhere else I'd rather be."

"Alright, then." He smiled, and held out his empty glass. "Go and get me a refill, while you're on your feet."

Part of it was that I wanted to stick with Ray and the other three, but it wasn't all for the sake of team-building. I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a kick out of watching them go at it with the boys, even if I didn't fancy getting hands-on myself. To me, those nights at the Second Circle were like going to one of the adult cinemas downtown. It was a chance to see a bunch of good-looking guys getting busy with boys who could take it like they were made for it, and who's going to turn that down? And maybe there was a little bit of me that wanted to see Ray in action, right from the start. I'd written him off as a real prospect, sure, but he still cropped up my daydreams more often than not, and all those nights watching him getting a piece of Patrick's boys just gave me more raw material to work with. By the time I eventually got involved with him myself, I thought I knew his tastes inside and out. I thought there wouldn't be a single surprise in store for me.

 

* * *

 

The first time I saw Ray actually getting down to it with anyone, it was at the third of those monthly soirees. At the first one, he'd taken Caspar and Jimmy up to one of the private rooms, and I'd stayed downstairs while he had his fun. At the second party, him and Yves disappeared upstairs for an hour early on, and then later he went off again, this time with Nicholas and his bit of jailbait. By the time the third soiree rolled around, I figured it'd be Sidney's turn, and I wasn't the only one.

"D'you know, it's silly, but when I was picking out his clothes for tonight," Sidney said, nodding towards his boy, "I had half my mind on what I felt like seeing, and half on what I thought Ray might like. He's got me preening my own boy for him, and we're only three months in…"

The boy, Scott, laughed and rolled his eyes. "You'd have wrapped me up in tissue paper and put a bow on top, if I'd let you."

"Can I help it if I want to get ahead?" Sidney tutted. "That's your problem, you've got no ambition."

"Well, I've got enough to be sitting here drinking champagne when all the other boys are down the Lamb & Lion, haven't I?"

"Anyway," Sidney said, pushing the boy off the sofa and onto his feet, "what d'you think, Lee, d'you reckon the boss is going to go for this?"

I looked Scott over, while he grinned and did a little twirl. He was thin and pasty, with dyed pillar-box red hair, and an outfit like Jimmy's, only cheaper: a black leather jacket, a tight white t-shirt, and blue jeans with the knees torn out.

"Yeah," I said, nodding. "Definitely."

I wasn't lying exactly, but I didn't really know what I was talking about. At that point, as far as I was concerned, Ray went for just about every type you could think of. With the comments he used to make when we were driving around, I got the impression I could've opened the car door and waved over the first boy who looked up, and Ray would have been perfectly happy. It took me a long time to figure out which of those comments he meant, and which were just window-dressing.

Now, normally we'd spend the first hour on our own, and then when Ray finally made his entrance, I'd be the first on my feet, and I'd take his coat and get him a drink while the others said hello. That night, Sidney beat me to it by a long stretch. He had Ray's coat in his hands before I'd gotten halfway there. He must have been watching that door like a hawk. Ray was in a good mood that night, much better than usual, since everything was falling into place with the expansion, and when he clapped eyes on Sidney and Scott, he looked like he'd just won the lottery.

"Sidney," he said, with a big, broad smile, "I swear that boy of yours gets prettier every time I see him."

"Oh, don't get him started," Sidney laughed, "he's been at me all day to ask you go upstairs with us, and lines like that are only going to make him worse…"

Scott pouted and crossed his arms. "I can't help it, can I? What d'you want, a chaste little prude?"

"No-one stays chaste around Ray for long," Sidney said, with a sharp, sleazy grin. "Do they, sir?"

Ray laughed and said "No comment," and we all went back over to the sofas to sit down. At first it was just the usual conversation, with Caspar talking business, and Nicholas going on about his latest health kick, and Sidney making silly jokes that had the boys rolling their eyes and shaking their heads. As the night went on, though, those jokes got racier and racier, and the boys stopped scoffing and started egging him on. A smutty joke's like blood in the water for Patrick's boys, because they know it's half desire and half nerves: the first bit makes you profitable, and the second bit makes you easy to handle. Ray seemed amused by it all, too, and when Scott leaned across and whispered something in Sidney's ear, Ray had a look on his face like he was just waiting for the curtain to go up.

"How about it, d'you fancy taking him upstairs with me, sir?" Sidney said, turning that sleazy grin up to full volume. "He's been wheedling me about it all night, so at this point it'd be an act of mercy…"

"Sure," Ray said, with a perfectly carefree smile. "Only there's no need to go all the way upstairs, is there?"

Sidney, for once, didn't have a reply in his pocket. He glanced across at Scott, and the boy smiled and shrugged and said "As long as I get it, upstairs or downstairs, it's all the same to me."

Ray held out his empty glass, and glanced at me without a word. I said "Yes, sir," and took the glass over to the bar. He had rules about what he'd drink and when, and in the first couple of weeks of working for him, I'd made a point of memorising them all. By the three month mark, all I needed to see was an empty glass and a clock, and I knew what he wanted. One time early on, he'd smiled at me when I brought him his refill, and said: _You've got quite a memory on you, haven't you?_ It made my day. From then on I fetched all his drinks, and he never had to bother giving the order out loud again.

When I got back to Ray, he was leaning back in his chair, with Scott kneeling in front of him. The boy was just moving his hands up to Ray's fly, but the minute his fingers brushed the buttons, Ray swatted them away.

"Leave that to me," he said, a bit sharply.

"Suit yourself," Scott muttered. I wanted to give him a shake and tell him to watch his mouth, and by the look on Sidney's face, I wasn't the only one. Still, Ray didn't seem too put off by the boy's lip. He grabbed Scott's hair with one hand, and unbuttoned his fly with the other, and by the time he took out his cock and held it to the boy's lips, I was just as hard as he was. I'll bet we all were. Everyone was watching, even Nicholas, who'd already started getting busy with that month's blond. Even if you're up to your eyeballs in boys, when Ray gets involved, you pay attention.

"Lee," he said, reaching out with his free hand. I realised I was still holding his drink, and I was kicking myself inside as I stepped forward to pass it to him. He didn't look at me as he took the glass out of my hands. He just pushed Scott's head down, roughly enough to knock a big, loud moan out of the boy. Between the embarrassment of showing myself up and the excitement of watching, I didn't know what to do. I just stood there, with my hands behind my back and my eyes fixed on Ray's cock. It's funny, trying to remember what it was like to see this or that part of him for the first time. Now I know every inch of him, I can picture it all down to the last detail if I close my eyes. The curve of his shaft, the way it bulges out a bit at the sides. The dark purplish veins that run down the length of it. The thick black hair at the base, with the odd grey strand here and there. But back then, it was all new, all unexplored. That night I watched him so hard I'm surprised my eyes didn’t water from the strain.

The boy made a lot of noise, groaning and gasping and choking. I don't know how much of that was put on, but the sound of it kept ringing in my head, making me wish Ray would be even rougher with him. I wanted to see Scott really suffer, for no reason at all other than I wished I was in his place. When Ray came, he shoved the boy's head down and held him there, with more strength in that one big hand than I could have mustered with both of mine. I haven't got a clue whether Scott was struggling to take it or not, because all my attention was on Ray. His eyes were hard and bright, and his face was like a stone mask, solid and cold and unbreakable. He looked like he could have happily thrown that boy and all the rest of us off the pier without batting an eyelid. I remember thinking: _He's like me, deep down. He's like me, but worse._


	4. Chapter 4

We started getting heavily involved with Mr Turner's group in the winter of that year. Their organisation and ours had always been close, but we were stepping things up a notch as part of the succession-planning, and they were expanding the entertainment side of their business, so naturally they came to us for help. The two guys that came over to negotiate all of this weren't that much older than I was, and I couldn't take them seriously. They were in their late twenties, maybe early thirties at the most. _The heir and the spare_ , Ray called them. The heir was a glossy tanned blond who introduced himself as Chris, and smiled and shook my hand like a politician. The spare was a short, dark-haired guy called Johnny, who gave me a leering stare and a sleazy grin that reminded me of Sidney. I didn't like either of them, right from the off, so I was happy when Ray told me to wait outside. Him and Patrick and Caspar went through into the conference room, along with the heir and the spare, plus the older one of their two security guys. That left me and the younger tough guy, Bryant, waiting together in the corridor. I figured that since it'd be a long meeting, I might as well sit down and get some reading in. I should have known not to bother.

"What's that?" Bryant said, pointing at my book.

"Tacitus," I said, hoping that would be the end of it.

"Oh," he said, and went over to lean against the windowsill. I got halfway down the next paragraph before he said "I'm not much of a reader, me. Haven't got the concentration for it."

I looked up from the book. "Haven't you?"

"No," he said, fidgeting with something in his hands. "Crawford's always on at me to read stuff, but I haven't got time for that. And besides, there's nothing in those books you couldn't find out from asking the right guy, is there? So why bother wasting the time, that's what I say."

There was a little orange flicker of light, and I realised he was playing with a lighter, capping and uncapping it, and now pressing the button of it over and over.

"How long have you been with Ray, then?" he said, flicking the lever so that the next flame was a good three inches high.

"I've been working for him for about six months now." Actually, it had been six months and eleven days, or six months and two weeks if you count it from the interview at the Fig Leaf.

"No, I mean how long have you been _with_ him," Bryant said, with a little snigger. "You're not the bashful type, are you? You don't look it. You remind me of a guy I used to know when me and Crawford worked down south, he had a face on him like a gargoyle, all sour and stone-cold, but if you spent a bit of time talking to him, he was the nicest guy you ever met, I swear, you couldn't find a nicer guy, he'd do anything for you, but if you looked at him, and you didn't know him, you'd think he hated every single one of us. I thought he hated me at first, you know."

"Did you?" I said, stroking my thumb over the spine of my book.

"Yeah," he said, and carried on telling me all about the guys he knew in his old group. I kept nodding every so often while he was talking, but I was only half listening. The other half of me was caught up thinking about the reputation I'd gotten just from being on Ray's personal staff for a few months. The other guys in the organisation, they knew all about Ray and his tastes, and they'd seen him taking a different good-time boy home every night for years and years. Of course they were going to think he was at it with me, and with Caspar, and Nicholas, and Sidney, and every other guy that came within reach of him. Maybe if I hadn't fancied him, all of that wouldn't have bothered me at all, but there was something about the setup that was driving me mad. The gap between what I wanted and what was on offer seemed so wide, and like it was getting wider all the time. I felt like I was going to fall right into that abyss and be smashed to pieces. All I could do was grit my teeth and hang on. I told myself that maybe over time the feeling would fade. I told myself that even if it didn't, it was enough just to be close to Ray.

The meeting seemed to take hours, and I assumed it must have been going badly. I couldn't have been more wrong. Afterwards, as everyone filed out of the conference room, I watched them closely and tried to figure out what their expressions meant. Patrick looked quietly pleased. Caspar looked downright excited. Chris and Crawford looked exactly how they'd looked when they went in: smug, and grim, respectively. Last of all, Ray came out of the room looking very cheerful and relaxed, with Johnny trailing along behind him.

"Right then," Ray said, flashing me a smile. "Up for a bit more driving, Lee?"

I said "Yes, sir," and followed him down the corridor. It was only when we got to the car, and Johnny was still with us, that I realised what was going on. I held the car door open for Ray, and then went around and did the same for Johnny. Even if I don’t like a guy, I've got to be professional. Personal grudges don't do anyone any favours.

"Still can't get used to having doors opened for me," Johnny said. Well, he can't have been that put off, because he was clearly talking to Ray and not to me. He'd gotten used to it, alright. He loved the bowing and scraping, anyone could see that. It takes a special kind of fool to complain about the staff deferring to him, and then turn around and act like the staff are invisible.

"Well, you're going up in the world, aren't you?" Ray gave a little chuckle. "You're bound to miss the gutter."

I sat down in the driver's seat, trying to pretend like it was just me and Ray, and said "Where to, sir?"

"My place," he said, meeting my eyes in the mirror. "And once you've dropped us off, I want you to wait outside til we're done."

Johnny tutted. "What, aren't you going to be nice and let me stay over? I'm not going to run off in the middle of the night with your silverware, you know."

"Mr Middleton's put aside a nice big suite for you guys," Ray said, with a little bit of crispness under the smooth warmth of his voice. "It'd be a shame not to use it."

Johnny laughed, and then gave a big dramatic sigh. "Listen, kid," he said, tapping me on the shoulder, "if you ever see this guy letting a boy sleep at his place, write down the date and the time, and then phone the papers, because you'll have witnessed a ground-breaking bit of history in the making."

I didn't smile or laugh. I just nodded, and said "Okay," and kept driving.

They were ages in that apartment. It was twenty-five past eleven when they went in, and quarter to two in the morning by the time Johnny came out again. I didn't get bored. I barely noticed the time passing.

"Back to the hotel, is it?" I said, as I held the door for him.

"Yeah," Johnny said, rubbing his mouth. When I looked at him closely, I could see how red and sore the skin around his lips and chin was. There were stretches of the same redness on either side of his throat, and on his wrists. He looked exhausted, but as soon as I started the car, he fired up the patter he'd been giving Ray earlier.

"Are you doing anything after this?" he said, stretching out a bit on the backseat. "Like Ray said, I've got one of the deluxe suites, and it'd be a shame not to take advantage of it."

I kept my eyes on the road and said "Sorry, I'm busy."

"Fair enough," he said, with a yawn, and when I glanced at him in the mirror, he looked relieved.

 

* * *

 

I couldn't see what was so great about the deal they'd struck. We were going to get a percentage of whatever profit the boys brought in while they were over there, sure, but we'd have gotten a lot more if we'd kept them at home, wouldn't we? I couldn't understand why Ray and Patrick had agreed to it. We were even sending one of the grade-A boys from the Second Circle across. Any fool could see we were going to lose money. When I asked him about it, Ray just said "It's give and take, Lee." Well, to me it seemed like Mr Turner's group were doing all the taking and we were doing all the giving, but everyone else was acting like this deal was the best thing since sliced bread.

About a week before the boys were due to be sent across, Patrick threw a going-away party for them at the Second Circle. Ray was there, obviously, since he was the one who'd overseen the negotiations, which meant me and the rest of our team had to tag along. That made sense to me. What didn't make sense was that Vic and his live-in boy were invited too, even though they'd had nothing to do with the deal. The only connection they had was that Vic's boy, Stefan, was friends with one of the renters who was going away. Well, by that standard, you could have filled a dozen of Mr Middleton's clubs with friends and friends of friends and so on and so forth. It was nonsense, and I didn't understand why everyone seemed so pleased to have the two of them around.

"I'm going to miss you _so_ _much!_ " Stefan cooed at his friend, while I tried not to grimace. "Do you think you'll have time to come and visit me?"

The friend, David, laughed. "Darling, I'll be coming up every other weekend to visit Eric, so I'm sure you'll see plenty of me."

"But you're going to be away for _six months!_ I don’t see why it has to be such a long arrangement. It's inhumane! And surely it won't take more than a few weeks to whip those other boys into shape..."

Their voices were like nails down a blackboard to me. Mainly Stefan's, if I'm honest. I could see the point of David, because he was one of Patrick's staff, and so he must have brought in a tidy bit of money for the organisation. But what was the point of Stefan? As far as I could see, he did nothing whatsoever. He was good-looking, if you like your boys to be fifty-percent cheekbones and fifty-percent eyelashes, but to me he seemed like a bottomless pit that only existed to suck up all the money and attention he could get his hands on. Vic adored him, obviously, but I put that down to a weakness for pretty faces. I respected Vic, and I'd never have said a word against him, but I thought he was a soft touch where boys like Stefan were concerned. I pitied him. Ray would never have let a chiseller leech off him like that.

"Come on, now," Vic said, bringing his hand up to Stefan's cheek. "Don't make a fuss, you'll spoil the party."

"Oh, but Vic, I can't help it if I'm going to be lonely, can I..?" He rubbed his cheek against Vic's palm, like one of those two-faced cats who claws you as soon as you stop petting him. "You'll just have to take me out even more, to distract me."

Vic tutted and shook his head, but there was a little smile on his lips. I was baffled. He couldn't have been more different from Ray if he'd been another species altogether. They had similar faces, similar builds, and the same cropped haircut, but as soon as you spent a bit of time around them, it was clear the twins were chalk and cheese.

"Stefan, you are absolutely shameless," David laughed.

"Oh, that’s not very nice," Stefan said, with a little giggle. "And besides, it's not true at all—under the right circumstances, I can be the very model of contrition, darling…"

It was that kind of line that really wound me up. He carried on like he thought he was a famous actor. It was all _darling_ this and _sweetheart_ that and _oh absolutely dear,_ every five seconds. I understand it all now, but back then I just didn't get it. Why him and his friends talked like that, why anyone thought it was charming, how much steel he actually had under all that fluff. I was like a clueless kid who'd wandered into a grownup party. Everything went over my head.

"Now, boys, gather round," Patrick called out, from the little dais at the end of the room. The renters hurried to him like a troupe of soldiers getting into formation, and once they were assembled, he gave them a briefing just as serious as anything Ray or Vic might have given their guys. Sure, the words he used were flowery, but every single order he gave was iron-hard. There's a knack to being in command, and some guys just haven't got it. Patrick's got in spades, so much that even watching him give the renters their pep talk was enough to give me a thrill.

"You boys," he said, waving his hand out with a flourish that made his rings sparkle, "are going to be shining beacons of professionalism while you're away, do you understand?"

The renters nodded and said "Yes, Patrick," in unison.

"You are going to set a _flawless_ example for the amateurs on Mr Turner's books," he carried on, "and if I find out that even _one_ of you little beasts has behaved less than impeccably while you're over there, you will _all_ regret it. Have I made myself clear?"

Again, the whole lot of them said "Yes, Patrick," so obediently they might as well have saluted.

I watched Patrick silently as he talked, and I tried to imagine how it must feel to be one of his staff. To look at them, you'd think him and Stefan were two of a kind. They both wear flashy suits, and glitzy jewellery, and enough perfume you could get drunk just breathing it in, but that's as far as the similarity goes. Stefan gets what he wants the subtle way, and if he wants rid of you, he doesn't even have to say a word. You upset him, even slightly, and one day you're just quietly gone. Patrick, on the other hand, is completely upfront. He's in charge, and he doesn't take any nonsense, not from his staff, and not from anyone else around him, either. I guess it doesn't take a genius to figure out which approach I preferred.

"Now, darlings, this may be the last time for several months that you'll have the luxury of such pleasant surroundings," he said, waving his hands towards the big plush sofas at either side of him. "So tonight I want you to let your hair down and have a little fun."

That was the starting pistol for Patrick's boys. They were twice as voracious as my team were on a good day, and ten times as rowdy. They drank, and danced, and bickered, and clustered together almost at random for little bouts of quick, loud, very public sex. I don't think a single one of those boys bothered with the private rooms. They made Ray's soirees look like Sunday afternoon at the temperance club. It was entertaining to watch, but ultimately it was just another night sitting around, sipping my water, listening to Ray making small-talk with the other guys. I'd be lying if I said the time passed quickly, but it wasn't the worst way I could have spent my Saturday night. I had plenty worse ahead of me, that's for sure.

Once Patrick decided the boys had had enough fun, he walked into the middle of the room, clapped his hands twice, and called out "Boys," so sharply they must have heard him half a street away. The renters came to a dead stop, even the ones who were busy getting frisky with each other. They snapped to attention as quick as a squad of soldiers, every single one of them.

"I hope you've enjoyed tonight's festivities," he said, smiling very crisply. "Get plenty of rest tonight, my dears, and do take care on your way home."

The boys had their coats on and were saying their goodbyes in the time it took me to finish my drink, and by the time me and Ray made it out of the club, they'd all disappeared off into the night.

"What a marvellous party!" Stefan's voice came from behind me, and when I glanced around, him and Vic were following us out onto the pavement. I decided to ignore them, and I went around to open the car door for Ray, as if it was just the two of us.

"It's alright, Lee," he said, shaking his head. "It's a nice night and I fancy some fresh air, so I'll walk home."

"Okay, sir," I said, buttoning my coat up. "I'll walk with you."

Ray chuckled, and turned to Vic, and said "Have a good night, you two."

I followed Ray's gaze, and my eyes bumped right into Vic's. He was giving me the hardest stare I'd ever seen him deliver to anyone, professional or otherwise. It was a warning, I reckoned, although I didn't know exactly what it was in aid of. The nearest I could figure was that he was telling me to make sure Ray didn't come to any harm. It didn't occur to me that he might think I had any designs on his brother beyond doing my job.

"Likewise," Stefan said, and when I glanced at him, he was giving me a knowing smile that made my fists clench. "Take care, darling," he said, with a delicate little giggle. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!"


	5. Chapter 5

At the next soiree, Ray arrived with presents for everyone. I was a bit put out to see him carrying an armful of boxes. Even back then, it felt like that was my job, and I had to bite my lip to keep from complaining that he should have let me carry them in. The other guys weren't bothered. They accepted their gifts like a bunch of greedy kids—no, not like kids, like a gaggle of kept boys, which is exactly what people thought we were. The gifts themselves were the type of thing you'd buy your favourite toyboy: cuff-links and a watch for Caspar, a new suit for Nicholas, and a fur-collared coat for Sidney. It was only me who got a present that was actually useful.

"Here you are," Ray said, handing me a small, heavy wooden box. "It's about time we upgraded your kit, Lee."

I opened the box, and looked at the gun inside. It was a semi-automatic, long and dark and angular, with a reddish brown wood-panelled grip. I didn't recognise the model, but I knew enough to realise it was very modern, and it must have cost a packet.

"I'm grateful, sir," I said, looking up at him, "but you do know I've only ever used revolvers, don't you?"

"Of course," he laughed. "That's exactly my point. _This_ is the kind of piece you need for the work you do now, and if that means I've got to invest a bit of time training you…" He paused, and shrugged. "Then so be it."

 

* * *

 

We spent hours together in that shooting range. It was a tiny, creaky old place on the edge of town, and in all the evenings we spent practicing there, I never saw a single other customer apart from me and Ray. From the outside the range looked like it might have been derelict. The paint on the sign was almost gone, the windows were caked in dust, and the blinds were yellowed and constantly drawn. But the old man who ran the place was always there behind the desk, no matter what time of night we arrived, and he always greeted us informally and a bit sternly, as if Ray was a badly-behaved grandkid he was grudgingly fond of.

The first time we went there together, the old man looked from Ray to me and back again, and said "You've got someone in tow this time, have you?"

Ray smiled, and shrugged. "Just one of my guys who needs a bit of schooling."

"About time." The old man nodded. "Can't do everything on your own, can you?"

It was the closest I'd ever physically been to Ray. He spent ages correcting my posture and my aim, standing behind me with his arms outstretched alongside mine and his chest pressed to my back. He's taller than me, obviously, and his shoulders are broader, so to me it felt like I was being surrounded when I leaned back against him. Like leaning back against a big, warm, sturdy chair. I could've happily stood there for hours. I hadn't been up close with anyone for years, so the warmth of him was a surprise. I'd forgotten how hot people's bodies feel when they're pressed against you, even through your clothes. It threw me off a little bit, and that made my first few shots pretty poor, which just convinced Ray I needed even more training.

"I hope you like the décor in here," he said, with a chuckle. "Because you're going to be seeing a lot of this place."

He was close enough that I could feel the heat of his breath on my skin. My next shot was bad, too, and I winced at just how wide of the mark I was.

"Yes, sir," I said, glancing up at him. "However long it takes."

 

* * *

 

He was right about needing a piece like that, you know. Not two months after he bought me that gun, we were ambushed outside the Second Circle. Well, I say ambushed, but it wasn't some great feat of strategic warfare. It was just a van full of guys driving up and piling out, while Ray and the rest of us were heading out of the club. As soon as they hit the pavement and pulled their guns, I drew mine. I put five of them down, and Nicholas and Sidney finished the rest between them. Caspar had gotten Ray back inside the club before the first of those chumps even hit the ground. From the other group's perspective, it was a complete failure. From mine, it was a satisfying end to a good evening. The new gun worked out perfectly, and it proved Ray had been right. Six bullets wouldn't have been anywhere near enough.

Me and Sidney and Nicholas went back inside once it was over, and told Ray what the situation was. He was leaning against the bar, with one arm around Caspar's waist, and a drink in his free hand.

"You boys," he said, smiling broadly, "are getting to be a well-oiled machine these days, aren't you?"

If I could have smiled back without worrying that I looked weird, I would have. It was the happiest I'd ever been, and it only got better.

"And you, Lee," he said, putting his drink down on the bar. "You've been training hard, haven't you?" And he came over to me, and put his hands on my shoulders, and squeezed them tightly. "You did well," he said, moving one hand up to the back of my neck. It was warm, and rough, and firm, and the hairs underneath it were trying their best to stand on end. "You did very well," he said, and let me go.

My heart felt like it was going to hammer its way right through my chest. I couldn't speak. I just nodded, and kept my eyes on his, until he turned away and reached for his glass again.

"Right then." He took a sip of his drink, and gave us all a smile that swept out from him like a wave. "You'd better go and tidy up that mess outside."

 

* * *

 

I thought we might have spent a bit of time laying low after that, but when I suggested it to Ray, he just laughed and said "The show must go on, Lee."

So it was business as usual, and the only real change was that he started spending a bit more time with me. We were still going down to the shooting range a couple of nights a week, and now most days he'd bring me along with him to whatever meetings he had on his schedule. We'd even started having the odd meal together in-between jobs, when it was faster to stop off at a café somewhere than to go all the way home. And then there was the library.

It started because of a comment I made, off-hand, while we were waiting for Sidney and the others to arrive for a briefing. Ray was sitting at the head of the table, and I was sitting on his right-hand side. Normally he made small-talk with me when we were waiting around, but this time he took out a little red and blue hardback from his coat pocket, and began to read. Now, I hate being interrupted when I'm reading, and if it'd been anyone else I would have kept quiet, but somehow seeing a book in Ray's hands was like a red rag. I couldn't stop myself.

"What are you reading, sir?" I said, blurting it out quickly.

He glanced up, and gave me a sceptical look. " _The Twelve Caesars_ , why?"

I can count on one hand the number of times I've happened across someone with similar interests to me in this organisation, so I should have been overjoyed. That's not even touching the fact that I was talking to my own boss, and the joint second-in-command of the entire group. I had every reason to be polite and pleasant, but instead I raised an eyebrow and said "Suetonius? That's a bit gossipy, isn't it, sir?"

His eyebrows went up too, just slightly, and then his smile hardened. "Nothing wrong with a bit of light relief."

"No, sir," I said, with a nod. "But d'you ever read anything serious, though?"

"Maybe I should take you back to my place and show you the library," he said, "so you can tell me whether or not anything in there meets your standards."

The tone of his voice was like a slap in the face, and it woke me right up. "I'm sorry, sir," I said quickly. "I didn't mean—"

"Relax, Lee." He put the book down, and smiled again. "I'm just teasing you."

"Oh," I said, not really believing him. "I see, sir."

"But I wasn't joking about the library. You can come back with me and have a look, if you want." He took out his nail file, and started to buff his nails as he talked, very casually. "I think I can trust you to borrow a few books without losing them, can't I?"

"Yes, sir," I said, watching the blade of the file moving steadily across his nails. "Of course, sir."

After the meeting, I drove him back to his apartment, just like I'd done a hundred times before, but this time, he brought me inside. I took his coat, and hung it up on the coat-stand in the corner, next to all the others. It was funny, seeing all his coats side by side. Before that, I don’t think I'd grasped just how important clothes are to Ray. I mean, he'd bought us all new suits when we started working for him, and he was very particular about what we were allowed to wear, but it was only when I was standing there looking at half a dozen overcoats, all in different shades of dark, thick wool, that it really hit me how much appearance matters to him. I thought about the rules he had for food and drink, and the care he took with his outfits, and suddenly I had a little flash of a daydream in my head about learning all of the rules about clothes, and being able to pick out exactly what he wanted to wear without asking him, deducing it all from the time of year and the job he was doing. I was still thinking about that when he put his hand on my shoulder and said "Come on, follow me."

The library was a small room, but it was jammed full of books. There were shelves everywhere, and the only other furniture was a big armchair next to the fireplace, with a table and lamp beside it. It looked like the kind of place a solitary person would be completely comfortable. Like a refuge, and once you'd shut the door behind you, you'd feel as safe as could be. I could picture Ray sitting in that armchair, with the fire blazing beside him, a book in his lap, and a drink in his hand. I could picture myself closing the door after I'd taken him his drink, and then retreating into the kitchen, happy that everything was arranged the way he wanted it.

"Take whatever you like," he said, patting me on the shoulder. "I'll be in the lounge if you need me."

I said "Yes, sir," and glanced up at him. There was a distracted look in his eyes, like he'd remembered something important. Then he turned and left, without another word.

I borrowed four books from him, that first time, and when I'd finished those, I ask for another half dozen. Eventually I started taking twelve at a time, like you would from a public library, and every time I brought some back, Ray would quiz me about what I'd read. Not the facts of the books, nothing you could answer right or wrong. No, he wanted to know what I thought of them, what suited my tastes, how I'd rank them. Sometimes he'd disagree with me, and we'd argue about it a bit, but he'd be smiling the whole time. Sometimes he'd say "Now, it's completely subjective, of course," and then launch into a twenty minute speech about why his idea of a book made more sense than mine, and I'd listen and watch him silently, like I was in the audience at the theatre. I loved hearing him talk, even if I disagreed with every point he made. He could convince you of anything, even if the conviction only lasted until he stopped talking.

The library was the key to everything. One time, months after we'd gotten together, he said as much himself: _The minute I let you into that room_ , he told me _, I should have known I was done for._


	6. Chapter 6

When Ray eventually snapped, it was a complete surprise to me. He'd been taking me virtually everywhere with him for weeks, so when he called me into his office that morning, I thought it was going to be just another normal job. I was even starting to plan what I wanted the day to be like, if it was going to be just me and him. What I'd have to eat and drink if we stopped off at one of the cafés he liked, what I'd talk about in the car, what books I wanted to borrow next, that kind of thing.

"I need you to go across to Mr Turner's group," he said, before I'd even shut the door behind me. He said it so fast, it was like he was rushing the words out before they ran away from him.

"Just me, sir?" I said, hoping he was coming with me.

"Just you."

I didn't like the idea, but whatever Ray needed doing, I wanted to get it done, so I nodded and said "When, sir?"

"Today." He wasn't looking at me. His eyes were aimed just over my shoulder, at the wall behind me. "This afternoon. One of their guys is on his way over now to collect you."

"Has something happened, sir?"

"No," he said, standing up. "Nothing. I just want to make sure everything's going smoothly."

I knew he was lying, but I didn't know what about. It seemed odd to me that he'd cover it up if something _had_ gone wrong. I mean, if I'm being sent down there to sort out a problem, then I need to know what that problem is, don’t I? But you don't send a guy over at that kind of short notice out of idle curiosity, so I was stumped.

"Alright, sir," I said, watching his face. He was rearranging some papers on the desk, and his mouth was set in a hard smile. "But can I ask why it's me who's going, sir?"

Ray straightened up, and looked me right in the eye, and said "No reason in particular."

 

* * *

 

The boy they sent to pick me up was the most annoying kid I'd ever met. He talked the whole time he was driving, and from the minute I got into the car he was acting like we were best friends.

"You're Lee, right?" he said, twisting around in his seat to grin at me. "I'm Tommy. Did Johnny mention me when he was up here last time?"

I shook my head and said "No."

"I'll tell you what, he was going on about this deal non-stop when he got back," Tommy said, as he started the car. "He says the boys you've sent us are the genuine article. They make our boys look like a pack of feral dogs, he says."

"Does he?"

"Well, our boys ain't exactly shabby, but you've got some real lookers on your books, haven't you? Man, if I was one of the punters round your way I'd be bankrupt!"

I nodded, and didn't say anything.

"Did Johnny hit on you, then?" Tommy glanced at me in the mirror and grinned again.

"Yeah," I said, and looked out of the window.

"That's Johnny, alright, he's unstoppable. I don't think there's a guy under thirty on our turf he ain't had a piece of."

"Well, he hasn't had a piece of me," I snapped.

"Hasn't he?" Tommy laughed. "Oh, I get it, are you Ray's private property?"

I wanted to say _No_ , and I wanted to say _Yes_ , and most of all I wanted to tell him to shut his stupid mouth, so I just kept quiet.

"Aw, I think that's nice," he carried on. "Really sweet, that is. I'm not under lock and key or anything, I just do whoever Johnny tells me to, but I'll tell you what, if he said I couldn't get busy with anyone else, it'd be fine by me. Long as I get to come along when he picks up one of his pretty boys, I couldn't care less about the rest of it."

I stared out of the window, watching the fields and hedges rush by, hoping Tommy would let it drop. He lasted all of two minutes before he started up again.

"So, d'you get to tag along when Johnny and your boss get together, then?" he said, but he didn't wait for a reply. "Man, what I wouldn't give to see that! I mean, I've never met him but I've seen his picture, and he's a good-looking guy, isn't he? Well obviously you think so too," he guffawed, "otherwise you wouldn't be his boy, would you? Anyway, they're both head-turners, aren't they? Your boss and his brother, I mean. No wonder Johnny's so stuck on them. Only," he said, pausing to throw a grin at me over his shoulder, "it's the other one he really likes, you know. That's Johnny for you. Give him a choice between hard and easy, and he'll take the hard route every time. Like the other week, we were chatting up this big new client, and you'll never believe what Johnny said to the guy…"

He carried on like that for two hours. Mostly he talked about Johnny, but he took every possible opportunity to make jokes about me and Ray, and it drove me mad. By the time we crossed the border into Mr Turner's territory, I was ready to strangle the kid.

 

* * *

 

Back home, the winters are icy and bitter. In Mr Turner's city, winter is just as wet and grey as autumn, only with more wind to lash the rain into your face. I feel like I hardly saw anything of the streets we drove through, because everything was blurred by sheets of rain. Even with Tommy holding an umbrella over me, I was still drenched by the time we'd walked from the car to the entrance of the club. Cloud Nine, it was called. The sign outside had a blue neon storm-cloud around the name, with a yellow thunderbolt that flickered on and off unevenly, giving everything underneath the doorway a sickly greenish cast. I remember thinking: _These amateurs can't even figure out how to make the entrance to the place welcoming, so god knows how bad the inside's going to be_.

The interior was a lot better, to be fair. It looked like the Fig Leaf, only everything was a bit newer. Lots of red and purple and gold, and big crystal chandeliers everywhere. The boys were reasonably well put-together, too. For all of Johnny's flattery, I don't think you could have told the difference between our staff and theirs. Not until the boys opened their mouths, anyway. As we walked through the club, I could hear some of our boys chatting to the customers, giving them the subtle kind of spiel I'd heard trotted out dozens of times at the Second Circle. At the same time I could hear the local boys doing their patter, which was about as subtle as a steamroller. They had no finesse. To my mind, Johnny and his boss ought to have been paying us double the going rate, just for the privilege of having our renters around to give his boys a clue.

Johnny's office was cheap and cheerful, and it reflected exactly what I thought of him and his skills. There was a desk in the middle, and a big leather chair behind it, but Johnny was sitting on the sofa at the side of the room, with his feet up, his tie loosened, and the collar of his shirt unfastened. I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd actually been asleep.

"There you are, Lee," he said, pushing himself upright and giving me the same sleazy grin I'd seen in the car that night. "I'll bet your ears are ringing, after a couple of hours being driven around by this kid."

"Hey!" Tommy said, but he was grinning too.

"Hello, Johnny," I said, and I forced myself to put my hand out to be shaken. He took it, and shook it lightly.

"So, you're here to do a spot-check, are you?" he said, with a shifty little laugh. "Your boys are doing great, so you've got nothing to worry about on that count. Still, go easy on us, will you? We're still finding our feet with this stuff."

"Sure," I said, but I'd already made my mind up to report back every single problem I found while I was over there, big or small. If I could have gotten the whole lot of them in hot water, I would have.

"Tommy, go and fetch us some drinks. Water for you, isn't it?" Johnny said, flashing me another grin. "And whiskey for me, I'm having a tough night."

The kid smiled and nodded, and scurried off out of the office, leaving me and Johnny alone. I looked at him, long and hard. He was older than me, and he looked it, but at the same time he didn't seem anywhere near as seasoned as someone in his job should've been. How anyone could look green and over the hill at the same time, I don't know, but somehow he managed it.

"Listen," he said, much more softly now that we were alone, "between you and me, kid, I know Ray hasn't sent you here to check up on us."

"Hasn't he?" I said, and I wanted to add: _Then what am I here for? Because apparently you know more about this than I do._

"You can drop the tough guy act," he chuckled. "You've had a row with him, haven't you? And he's sent you away for a bit while he cools down."

I didn't say anything.

"Just be thankful it's Ray you're seeing and not _his_ boss," he carried on. "If Ray gets mad he can send you over here, but a rich old guy like Mr Middleton? He could probably fly you halfway round the world if he wanted you out of the way."

I kept quiet, and fidgeted with the button of my cuff.

"Look, it's not nice, I know that," Johnny said, putting his arm around my shoulders, "but that's just the risk you run when you get involved with the guy you work for, isn't it?"

"I'm not involved with him." I said, shrugging his arm off.

"What?"

"I'm not involved with Ray," I said, regretting it already. "I never have been."

Johnny looked at me, took a big deep breath, and let it out in a long sigh. After a few seconds of silence, he shook his head and said "Well, no wonder you're so sour."

The door opened, and Tommy came back in carrying a couple of glasses on a tray. The minute the kid walked in, Johnny was back in character. "How long's it take to get two drinks, eh?" he said, rolling his eyes. "You've been stood there gossiping, haven't you?"

"Ain't my fault if it's busy out there, is it?" Tommy grinned at him, and then at me. "So are you having your drinks in here, or d'you want to come outside and watch the boys working?"

I picked my glass up off the tray, and turned to Johnny. "I'd like to talk to the boys in here, if you don't mind?"

Of course he minded, but what could he do about it? He shrugged and smiled and said "Sure, whatever works for you. D'you want them one at a time, or would you rather have a group?"

I tried not to grimace at the innuendo. "One at a time."

"Alright," he said, and he took a sip of his drink. "Come on, Tommy, let's get out of Lee's way, he's got a busy night ahead of him."

The kid grinned and said "Sure thing, Johnny!"

As they left, Johnny glanced at me briefly, and the expression on his face was one of quiet concern. He looked like he was closing the door on someone's sickroom. I shook my head and sat down on the sofa. Who did he think he was, feeling sorry for me?

 

* * *

 

Do you know it's like, talking to twenty-two boys one after the other? Mind-numbing is what it is. They were all different: some of them were loud and brassy, some of them quiet and demure, some of them swaggering and argumentative, but each conversation drained a little bit more of my battery, and by the time I'd gotten to the last one, I was ready to call the whole thing off and go home. They all had pretty much the same verdict to give, anyway. Cloud Nine was a bit ramshackle, and the clients were a bit blunter, but they had no major complaints. Most of them even liked Johnny. The worst thing anyone would say about him was that maybe he could do with being a bit stricter on the discipline.

"He's quite sentimental," Yves said, stifling a little yawn. "And apparently in the early days the local boys used to run rings around him, but that doesn't seem to be a problem anymore."

"How does he handle it, if there's a row between the boys?"

"He tries very hard to be fair. In fact, I'd say possibly a little _too_ hard." Yves frowned slightly. "I think he spends too much time and effort striving for a fair outcome, when he could simply lay down the law."

"You don't think he's fit to be in charge?"

"Oh, I wouldn't go _that_ far." He gave me a crisp laugh. "I think he'll be perfectly adequate to the task, once he's had a little more experience."

"Adequate," I carried on, trying to edge him towards an outright condemnation. "But not better than that?"

"Who knows?" Yves shrugged, and gave me a frosty look that he must have learned from watching Patrick. "I'm not a fortune teller, darling."

"Alright, then. I think that's everything I needed to ask." I said, trying my best to sound nonchalant. "Thanks for coming in."

"Not at all." He stood up, and smiled at me very smoothly and evenly, as if I was one of his big spenders. "Shall I ask Johnny to come back in?"

"No," I stood up too, and followed him to the door. "No need, I'll see myself out."

Yves gave me a slightly raised eyebrow and another smooth smile. "I'll tell him you said goodnight, then."

 

* * *

 

The second day I was there, I rang the office to report what I'd found out, but Ray wasn't in. I got Sidney instead, so I gave him the rundown. I told him everything was running smoothly, which it was, even if I still thought Johnny was an idiot. I mentioned that there'd been a discipline problem early on, and I recommended lobbying to replace Johnny with someone more seasoned, if we had enough pull to make the request. When I'd finished, I told Sidney I'd be heading back straight away, so I'd be there by five at the latest.

"Not so fast," he said, with a little laugh. "Ray left a message saying that you're to stay there a bit longer, and keep an eye on things."

"Okay," I said. "How long for?"

"Until he says you can come back. Honestly," Sidney tutted, "he's such a worrier, isn't he? He must think Mr Turner's guys are a bunch of complete morons, to keep you there babysitting them indefinitely."

"Indefinitely." I echoed the word without meaning to. I felt like it was swirling around in my head, rattling against the sides, pounding behind my eyes like the throb of a migraine.

"Yeah," he laughed. "Well, either that or you're in the doghouse over something. You didn't upset him, did you?"

I said "I don't know," but my voice sounded muffled and distant.

"Anyway, I've got to get going," he said, and in the background I could hear Caspar's voice muttering something about deadlines. "Give us a ring next week, just to keep us up-to-date, will you?"

"Alright," I said, and hung up.

I knew I was in the doghouse, like Sidney said, but I didn't know why. That wasn't a new thing for me. There had been plenty of times in the past that I'd upset people without realising, and even when they'd explained what the problem was, I still couldn't see why they were bothered. Being in people's bad books was an everyday thing, so why did it feel so wrenching this time? I told myself it was because Ray was my boss, and if I upset him, it might mean the end of the job. I don't want to bumble my way out of a decent position, do I? Of course not. So it was perfectly natural that I was out of sorts, and couldn't sleep, and had no appetite for anything except water.

The next day, I stayed in my hotel room until seven in the evening, and then made my way across to Cloud Nine. If Ray wanted me to keep an eye on things, then fine. I'd keep an eye on things. I'd sit there in that garish hellhole for a year if I had to. If he wanted to pay me for doing nothing, that was his choice. I parked myself at one of the tables, and sat there watching the boys work, thinking about how much I despised the whole lot of them. I could see Yves in one of the booths, laughing at some rich old man's jokes. I could see David at the table next door but one, tipping half his drink away when his client wasn't looking. I could see Tommy weaving between the tables, carrying messages and drinks back and forth between the floor and the office. I spent a long time just staring at the office door, at the way the lights glittered on the nameplate, and at the cheap coarse grain of the wood. When Johnny opened the door and came out of the office, I was staring right at him.

"Evening, Lee," he called out, waving. "Mind if I come and join you?"

I wanted to tell him exactly what he could do with his friendly overture, but I kept quiet. He sat down next to me, and made a big show of fidgeting with the collar of his shirt.

"It's hot in here tonight, isn't it? Too hot by half. They've got the heating on full blast, so you freeze when you're on the pavement, and roast once you get inside." He twisted around in his chair, and shouted "Tommy! Fetch us some fresh drinks, we're dying of heatstroke over here."

"It's alright, I'm still drinking this," I said, rattling the ice cubes in my glass of water.

"Anyway," Johnny said, much quieter now. "Look, I've been worried about you, kid. I know it's nothing to do with me, but—"

"You're right," I said, putting my glass down hard.

"What?"

"It's nothing to do with you."

"Hey, listen," he carried on, putting the palms of his hands up. "I just want everything to run smoothly, alright? And I can tell you right now, if Ray's not happy, then his old man isn't happy. And d'you know what that means? It means _my_ old man's not happy either. And that's the bottom line, Lee. The rest of you can go—" He stopped, and shook his head, and turned around towards the bar. "Tommy! What're you doing with those drinks, hand-blending them yourself?"

"Alright, I'm coming!" The kid shouted back, and when I glanced round, he was heading towards us with a tray in his hands and a big stupid grin on his face. When he got to our table, he whistled and said "Man, you guys look like you're at a wake! What're you talking about, Johnny's bank balance?"

"Watch your mouth, you," Johnny tutted, but as he talked, his eyes wandered towards the main entrance. I followed his gaze over to the two well-dressed young guys who were standing in the doorway. They were squaring up to the doorman, talking angrily and gesticulating, but I couldn't hear what they were saying. Johnny turned back to us, and put his hand on Tommy's arm, and silently gave it a little squeeze. The kid didn't say anything either. He just glanced around at the two guys, gave Johnny a brief nod, and headed off towards the entrance.

"Anyway," Johnny said, turning his attention back to me, "I don't want to stick my nose in where it's not wanted, so I'm not going to badger you about it. Why don't you just kick back and relax tonight, try to take your mind of all of this? If you want, I'll send one of the boys over to keep you company. Any you like, you just point one out and he's yours, on the house, what d'you say?"

"No, thanks." I shook my head, and finished my drink.

"You don't go for boys like these?" Johnny frowned for a minute, and then laughed. "Oh, of course, you'd want someone a bit older, wouldn't you?"

"No." I shook my head again. "I don't go for one-offs."

He looked at me silently for a few seconds, and then downed his whiskey in one. "Well," he said, "if you don't go for one-offs, and you're hung up on Ray, then I'd say you're looking at a life of celibacy. Listen, if I were you, Lee, I'd forget all about him, and find someone who—"

"If I were you," I cut him off sharply, "I'd mind my own business."

"Alright," he said, shrugging. "It's your life, kid."

He patted me on the shoulder and went back into his office. I sat down and drank the rest of my water, and when I'd finished that one, I went and got another, with as much ice in it as would fit. I wanted to freeze myself solid. I wanted to be completely numb. Not for the first time, I wished I had the option of getting drunk. Then as I went back to my table, the side door opened, and I saw Tommy coming in from the alley outside. His suit was slightly crumpled, and his tie was askew, and there were smears of blood on his knuckles and cuffs, but the most striking thing about him was his face. His eyes were shining, and his cheeks were flushed, and he was grinning like he'd won a gold medal. He caught sight of me, and gave me a cheerful nod, and his eyes seemed to say: _We're the same, you and me_. And then he disappeared into Johnny's office, and I heard the click of the door locking behind him. _We're the same, you and me_. I let the words knock around in my head. We were the same, and at the same time we weren't, and I wished I'd never laid eyes on Tommy, or Johnny, or Ray.

 

* * *

 

I made a big fuss of rejecting Johnny's advice, but I couldn't reject his hospitality. Officially I was down there to keep an eye on the boys, so what else could I do except spend every night at Cloud Nine? But there was nothing to oversee, really. The club ran like clockwork. The boys were confident and efficient, and they probably didn't even need Johnny around to manage them. The clients were a bit on the rough side, but by and large they behaved themselves. I only saw one fight in the week I spent there, and that was between a couple of young drunks who got into it before they'd even sat down with the boys.

When the call came, I was sitting in my usual booth at the side of the room, halfway between the main entrance and the door to Johnny's office. The booths were the best place for watching what went on, since they were raised up on a little platform. I found after the first couple of nights that people were a lot less likely to approach me if I was in a booth, too, because it looked like I might be waiting for one of the boys.

"Lee!" Johnny shouted from the doorway of his office. "Ray's on the phone for you."

I must have gotten to my feet and made my way across the floor, but I don't remember it. All I remember is standing in Johnny's office, alone, with the receiver clutched in both hands.

"I need you back in town, Lee." His voice was smooth and warm, just the way it had been last week, before everything went wrong. "Can you set off tonight?"

"Yes, sir. I just need to pack."

"Good," he said, and I could picture his face as he said it. The broad curl of his smile, the thin lines around his mouth, the hard gleam of his eyes.

"Shall I come straight to the office, sir?"

"No, I want you to get a good night's sleep first. Come and meet me tomorrow morning."

I asked him where, expecting him to say his place, or one of the clubs. Instead he gave me the name of a little café on the pier, a place we'd only been once or twice.

"I want you there at eleven on the dot," he said, very firmly. "Don't keep me waiting."

"Yes, sir," I said. "Of course, sir."

"That's my boy, " he said, and then there was a pause, and he gave a quiet little chuckle. "Right then," he carried on, "I'll see you tomorrow."

He hung up, and I sat down in the chair behind Johnny's desk, holding the receiver in my hands as if I'd forgotten what to do with it.

 

* * *

 

"I owe you an apology, Lee."

"Sir?" I said, completely baffled. As far as I knew, I was the one who'd done something wrong, not him. I thought this was one of those meetings where the other person explains what mistake I've made, and I make a note of it and try not to do it again. An apology from Ray was the last thing I expected.

"I needed some time to think," he said, "but I should have been honest about it. I shouldn't have sent you away without explaining myself. I'm sorry, Lee." He reached over, and put his hand on the top of my arm, and squeezed it.

Now, I'm not stupid, I know what _needing time to think_ usually means. It means you're on the way out. It means things aren't working. It means you're a nice kid, but just not what we're looking for. I knew that, but I didn't want to accept it, so I looked up at Ray as if I didn't understand at all, and said "What did you need to think about, sir?"

"You really don't want to make this easy for me, do you? Not that I've got any right to complain about that." He chuckled, almost to himself, and cleared his throat, and took a sip of tea. "When you first started working for me, you said you didn't bother with pickups or casual relationships, didn't you?"

I nodded, and said "Yes, sir."

"And that you only get involved if you know the guy's up for something serious."

"Yes, sir," I said, genuinely not understanding why he was taking so long to state the obvious.

He smiled, and said "Is that still what you want?"

I drank a bit of my tea, and thought about it. I wanted a serious relationship with someone like Ray, someone who made me feel the same way he did, who looked after me the same way, who I could help out in the same way. In an ideal world, I wanted that with _him_. But how often does anyone really get what they want? It's like wishing for a win on the pools. So I shrugged, and said "I just want to work for you, sir. As long as I can keep working for you, I'm happy."

"No, Lee, that's not what I'm asking," he said, shaking his head.

"Sorry, sir." I winced a bit. He'd said I was making it difficult, and now I was making it worse. "But I'm not following you, sir. What _are_ you asking?"

"I've never bothered with serious relationships," he said, quietly, "because the bottom line is that I just don't _like_ people, Lee. I like having sex with them, but I don't like being around them, not enough for a proper relationship. The only people I've ever really enjoyed spending time with are Vic and Mr Middleton." He paused, and smiled slightly, and shook his head. "Or at least, that's how it _was_ , anyway. Apparently I've changed. I enjoy being with you. I miss you when you're not there. When you're out on a job, I worry about you. I actually find myself wanting to call you back in. I don't know what's changed, whether it's just me getting older or whether there's something about you that's gotten under my skin, but whatever it is, Lee, it's turned everything upside down."

I felt glad, and at the same time I felt guilty. He'd been happy in his own way, before he'd met me. He'd be happier, eventually, once we'd settled into the relationship, but at the time it felt like I'd upset his equilibrium for something that might not even work out.

"Well, what now, sir?" I said, trying not to sound too demanding. "Are you saying you want to try something serious with me?"

"Yes, I am. I want to see if we can make a go of it, at least." He looked away, out of the window, toward the sea. "But you've got to bear in mind, Lee, I've got no idea what I'm doing with all of this. The only serious relationship I've ever had is with Mr Middleton, and he's..." Ray paused again, and laughed. "Well, he's not like anyone else I've ever met."

"Am I?"

"No," he said, smiling. "No, you're not. So, what I'm asking is: knowing that it might not work out, will you give it a try with me?"

"Of course, sir. Of course I will." I smiled and laughed, not caring how weird I might look, and when the expression on his face only brightened, I felt like my heart would burst.


	7. Chapter 7

Not much changed, initially. Ray took Sidney aside that afternoon and told him the news, with the instruction that if there was any trouble from the other guys, Sidney was to smooth it over as best he could. I wasn’t in the office with them, but when Sidney came out, he smiled at me and said "It's long overdue, in my opinion. Me and Caspar had a bet on how long it'd take you two to get together, and if you'd left it any longer, I'd be well out of pocket."

Beyond that, it was business as usual. Without realising it, we'd been a de facto couple for months, so what else was there to do but carry on? The difference was that now, when I did a good job, the praise Ray gave me was that bit more affectionate, that bit more glowing. Now he'd put his hand on the back of my neck, and stroke his thumb along the grain of my hair, and smile at me as if I was the only person in the world, and say "That's my boy." Those three words were like magic to me. They were what made the birds sing, the clouds part, and the sun shine down on my face like the middle of summer.

And then there was the sex.

We sat down one day and hashed it all out: what I wanted, what he wanted, what concessions each of us was willing to make. It went on just like all the other negotiations I'd been involved in, except for once I had an equal stake and an equal say. During that conversation, I couldn't help thinking back to the six months I spent with that junior manager all those years ago. What I concluded was, for all the stuff about being equal—for all the times I heard "let's take turns choosing" and "it can't always be up to me, you know" and "why have you got to bring hierarchy into everything?"—for all of that, he didn't once sit down with me and ask me what I wanted. So when I was sitting with Ray, talking about exactly what got me fired up, listening to him reeling off his likes and dislikes, I found myself thinking: _This is what it's like to have an adult relationship. This is what it's like to be involved with someone who's really in control. This is it_.

Just like you'd expect, the first few times we had sex, it was good but not great. It took a few goes to get it right, but when we'd hit our stride, it was better than any fantasy I'd ever had. The first time things really clicked for us, it was a few weeks after we got involved. We'd spent most of the afternoon in the office with Caspar, going through the year end paperwork, but it'd been almost impossible to keep my mind on the job. Every time Caspar went out of the room, Ray took the opportunity to feel me up and tell me what he was going to do to me later. By the time Ray put his signature on the last of the documents, I would have happily gotten down to it right there on the desk if he'd told me to.

The previous times, we'd gone back to Ray's apartment, but this time we went to mine. Maybe that's part of why it worked so well. I'd spent so many hours in my flat fantasising about Ray that the sight of him standing there in my living room, in the flesh, looking down at me like a snake about to strike, it was bound to go to my head.

"Take your clothes off," he ordered. He'd seen me naked four times before, by that point, but he still watched me like a hawk as I undressed. It felt like he was taking an inventory of his stock, just for the pleasure of counting off and noting every item that belonged to him. When I was standing naked in front of him, he motioned with his hand and said "Turn around."

I said "Yes, sir," and did as I was told. There's two things Ray's attention always locks on to, even now: my face, which I don't understand the appeal of, and my ass, which I definitely do. So I stood still, with my hands clasped in front of me and my back straight, and I waited until he'd had his fill of the rear view.

"On your knees," he said, finally, and when I was kneeling down, he came around in front of me and said "Hands," in the kind of firm tone it's impossible to disobey. I put my wrists together and raised them up towards him. He already knew which drawer to go in for the rope, and he had my wrists bound in the time it would have taken an amateur to fumble the first loop. I was already hard, already straining to be touched, but he ignored everything except the task at hand. "Bend over," he said, and when I was in position, leaning forward on my elbows, he put his hand briefly on my back and said "Good boy." The thrill of that, the warmth of those words, it was even better than the feeling of him winding the next length of rope around my ankles. I never used to be bothered about praise when I was younger, but once Ray came on the scene it became almost half the fun. Control, service, and praise: give me those three things, and I'm in paradise.

"Come here," he said, and grabbed hold of my hair to pull me upright. I pushed myself up with my forearms, trying to help him haul me into position. He was strong enough to put me wherever he wanted even if I'd gone limp like a ragdoll, but I wanted to help anyway. I wanted to show him how much I loved all of this, without having to run my mouth. So I knelt there and just watched him, closely and quietly, while he stood over me and unbuttoned his fly. My lips were dry, and I licked them without thinking, which only made him laugh.

"Open," he said, grabbing hold of my chin with his free hand. He kept me like that for a minute or so, holding my mouth open with one hand, and stroking his cock with the other, keeping it just out of reach. I stayed silent. I wanted it, don't get me wrong. I wanted to suck his cock more than anything at that moment, but Ray doesn't like to hear begging. He says it makes him feel like he's being pestered. No, what Ray likes to hear is the noises you can't help making. When he finally pulled my head down and fed his cock into my mouth, the feeling of it hitting the back of my throat made me groan just slightly, almost too quietly to hear. Ray heard it, alright, and he loved it. He cupped one hand around the back of my head, and circled the other around the base of his cock, and began to fuck my mouth slowly. I had to go at his pace. No throwing myself in the deep end head-first. Slow, heavy, and cruel. That's how to drive me mad.

The knowledge that I'm pleasing him makes me happy, and the taste of his skin is better than anything else my tongue's ever had, but for me the main appeal when he's fucking my mouth is the feel of it. The way my lips get sore from being stretched around his cock. The way my throat aches. The way my mouth waters around him, so my face ends up warm and sticky with spit. It makes me want to suck his cock all night, and at the same time it makes me want to be fucked, so that night I was as torn as ever. How do you pick what you want most, when all the options are irresistible? Well, my answer to that is: _you don't_. You leave it up to the guy who calls the shots.

After a few minutes of fucking my mouth, Ray pulled back, pointed to the sofa, and said "Up."

I climbed onto it clumsily, and got into position as quickly as I could, with my head down and my ass up. The ache inside me was burning hot already, making me impatient, making my heart race and my hands tremble. Early on in a session, I enjoy being tied up because it feels good, but there's always a point where it becomes just as much gratitude as pleasure. The restraints keep me still and secure, just like Ray's hands always do, when I'm starting to lose control.

"Good boy," he said, stroking a hand down over my side, across my ribs, down to my hip. Then his hand moved away, and I could hear him getting the lube out of the drawer, taking the lid off, wetting his fingers. I felt like a dog waiting for a treat. When he put his dry hand on my back to steady me, and brushed his fingertips along the cleft of my ass, I was so eager for it that I gasped like he'd slapped me. Ray just laughed, and said "Easy, now."

He slid one finger into me, and then a second. Two's the most I can take with no warm-up, even to this day, so after that he went slowly and gradually. He knew exactly what he was doing. He pushed his fingers into me and spread them gently, crooked them a little, drew the pads of his fingertips over just the right spot, over and over until I was ready for a third. When he gave me that third finger, that's when my composure really started to slip. Two fingers feels like I'm being toyed with, but three feels like I'm being stretched wide open. I didn't beg to be fucked, as much as I wanted to. I just put my head down against the cushion underneath me and bit my lip to keep from moaning too loudly. It was a futile effort, though. If Ray decides he wants to make you lose control, you haven't got a chance. He kept on sliding his fingers into me, kept on pushing and stretching me, kept on spreading me open, until my throat was sore from groaning.

"Such a racket…" he laughed. "That mouth needs covering up."

The first time he ever gagged me, it was with a silk scarf. The second time, it was with my own tie. This time, he pulled his fingers out of me, wiped them off on his handkerchief, and opened his briefcase. I'd seen a roll of duct tape in there dozens of times, but never like this. Never meant for me. The idea hadn't even occurred to me before, but as soon as I set eyes on the tape, I was sold. He cut off a length of it and fixed it across my mouth, clamping his hand over my cheeks and chin until it had settled into place. It was cold, and tight, and perfect.

"There," he said, moving his hand back down to grip my ass. "That's much better, isn't it?"

As usual, it was only once the gag was on that Ray started asking me questions. "You like that, don't you?" he said, pushing his fingers into me again, deep and hard. I could feel his knuckles grinding against the rim of my ass, and the bone and muscle of his fingers spreading me open, and weight of his free hand pinning me down, and all of it added up into one long, muffled, desperate groan. "That's right," he laughed, "you need it more than anything right now, don't you?"

I wanted his cock so much that I wouldn't have been able to keep from begging, if it'd hadn't been for the tape over my mouth. I could feel it brushing against my thigh, weighing heavily against me whenever Ray leaned over to yank my hair. I could imagine exactly how it was going to feel inside me. That sensation was burned into my memory the first time he fucked me, and now nothing else would do. Now whenever he laid a hand on me, it was only a matter of time before I was desperate to have his cock in my ass. I wondered how he could do that to me so easily. I never used to be like that, when I was younger. I enjoyed being fucked, sure. I fantasised about it hundreds of times. But there wasn't a trace of that sheer obsessive _need_ in me, not before Ray fucked me. Now I couldn't get enough.

He pulled away for a moment, and I could hear him slicking lube over his cock. Even with my eyes shut and my head down, I could picture it. His hand, broad and thick, moving slowly over his shaft. His skin, looking smoother and darker under a layer of glossy lube. The head of his cock, with his thumb stroking across it, around it, tracing the path my tongue wanted to take again, even now.

As he knelt down behind me again, he said "Hold still and relax." How can you relax when the thing you want most in the world is brushing up against you? I could feel his shaft pressing between the cheeks of my ass, not pushing in, not yet, just rubbing up and down against me. The heat and the hardness of it were enough to drive me mad all on their own, before he'd put even the first inch inside me. When he pushed forward and began to feed it into my ass, I couldn't keep quiet. Those three fingers, they were nothing compared to the thick heat of Ray's cock forcing its way into me, making me whimper under the gag. He gave it to me slowly, but not gently. He was sensible about it, alright, but there wasn't a shred of kindness in the way he drove it in. I tried to relax and breathe the way he always told me to, and I did a decent job, but it was an effort and a half. When he was in to the hilt, he stroked his hand down along my back, and said "Good boy," and between the sound of those words and the feeling of his cock twitching and throbbing inside me, it was all I could do to nod and groan out a muffled thank-you.

"That's right," he said, easing back a few inches, "you like it nice and deep, don't you?" And he pushed forward again, underlining the question with a slow, heavy thrust that crushed another moan out of me. Again he pulled out a bit, waited a second, and then drove his cock back in to the hilt, and again the slam of his hips against my ass was too much to bear silently. Each time he pulled back and thrust in, he gave me a bit more force, a bit more of the strength I knew he was holding back, coaxing me to relax around him little by little, until I felt like a city that had surrendered and thrown its gates wide open after years of siege. "That's my boy," he said, giving me one hard, heavy, vicious thrust. "Now I want to see your face."

He pulled out, turned me over onto my back, and pushed my legs up so that my knees touched my chest. That was my favourite position, even back then. He could hold my ankles in one hand, and reach down with his other to grip my throat or my cock, and the whole time I could watch his face, and see all the little flickers of pleasure passing across it. He slid back into me, and set a faster pace this time, right from the off. It was intense when I was on all fours, but on my back like this, with my legs pushed high, if it felt like he was beating against the deepest part of me. Just like I was hoping, he took hold of my throat in his free hand and leaned hard on it, heavily enough to cut off a bit of my air. My back arched and my cock twitched, and I made a choked little sound of pleasure as his hand squeezed harder. Ray looked down at me and smiled so cruelly it made me shiver.

"You love that, don't you?" he said. "But then, you like the feel of my hand just about anywhere, isn't that right?"

He let go of my throat, and moved his hand down to my cock. No gag on earth could have kept me quiet when he curled his fingers around it. He started to stroke me, slowly and firmly, the same way I would have stroked myself. The only difference was that his hand was so much stronger than mine, and so much broader. Even with his little finger flush to my groin, his hand covered almost all of my cock, so being held in his grip was like being swallowed whole. He fucked me and stroked me at the same slow, crushing pace, and it was inescapably overwhelming. Every sensitive spot, every inch of skin that was vulnerable to him, he manipulated each one mercilessly. Inside and out, he had me in his grip. I was done for the minute he laid a finger on me.

These days, he can tell when I'm going to come just by looking at my face, but even then he could read me like a book. I closed my eyes and bucked my hips forward, trying to grind my cock a little harder into his fist, but it was useless. The pace was his to set, and as soon as I started to get close, he loosened his grip. "Not yet," he said, tutting. When I looked up at him, he was smiling and shaking his head. "I'm going to teach you some patience, if it's the last thing I do."

He started to stroke me again, more firmly now, and very quickly I found myself right at the edge of coming. Just as quickly, he stopped, and took his hand away. "No," he chided me. "Not just yet, Lee."

It's the helplessness he enjoys. The rest of the time, he likes me to be strong and capable, but when he fucks me, he wants me helpless. He wants to see me staring up at him, desperate and frustrated, grasping at every scrap of pleasure he gives me. That night he brought me almost to the point of coming over and over, six times all in all, and every time I whimpered and arched up toward him, trying to chase the touch he was taking away, the look on his face was sheer cruel satisfaction.

"You…" he said, moving his hand back up to my throat, "I could torment you all night." By which he meant, his own patience was wearing thin. He held my throat in one hand and my ankles with the other, and fucked me faster and rougher than he had done all night. None of those strokes were for me. Every single thrust was for him, for completely and purely selfish pleasure, as if I was just an extension of his fist, just a tight wet hole to be fucked, and when he finally slammed in to the hilt and squeezed my throat hard, I could feel my heartbeat hammering under his fingers, pounding in my chest, fast and hard like the throbbing and swelling of his cock inside me. Inside and out, again, he had me overwhelmed. I was shaking when he'd finished, and I felt as tired as if half of that effort and satisfaction had been mine.

"Come here," he said, as he pulled out. The feeling of being suddenly empty was too much, and I gave a hoarse little whine of frustration that made Ray smile. "Don't worry," he laughed, "I won't leave you empty for long."

He sat on the edge of the sofa, pressed close to me, so that I could feel the heat of his body against my skin. He only paused briefly to lube his hand up again, but it felt like an hour. By the time he pushed his fingers back into me, I'd reached my limit. The noise I made sounded like an animal wailing in pain. All four of his fingers slid into me, and the broadest part of his hand stretched me wide open, wider than I thought I could take it, and his fingertips stroked and rubbed me so deeply that it didn't feel real. It felt like a fantasy I'd dreamed up, like I was alone on my bed in the old days, with my eyes closed and the perfect captor looming over me in my thoughts, using me, toying with me, hurting me, controlling me.

"That's right," Ray said, taking hold of my cock again with his free hand. "Show me, Lee."

His hands were everything. His fingers were the only thing in the world that mattered to me. I would have done anything for them. Anything for another tight stroke of his fist around my cock, another deep thrust of his fingers inside me, another hard shove towards the edge of coming. I would have done anything at all. When I finally came, I cried out underneath that gag like he was killing me. I made more noise in those few seconds than I had in all the last week put together. He could make me lose my mind completely, effortlessly, at the drop of a hat, whenever he wanted. There was nothing in me that he couldn't control. There never had been.


	8. Chapter 8

The other thing that changed was the rules. Ray had always been particular about how I did things, even back when I was just another subordinate, but now his interest was amplified about a hundred times over. He'd bought all four of us plenty of clothes over the year we'd been working for him, but once I was officially his boy, he replaced every outfit of mine he wasn't quite happy with, and bought me a dozen more that I didn't even need, just because he felt like it. He had rules about what he'd wear and when, and now so did I. One time, I thought I'd try to be helpful by pointing out something I liked the look of, when we were walking past a shop window full of suited mannequins. Ray just looked at me and shook his head, and said "It's ten years too early for you to wear a three-piece, Lee, and that's being generous."

That twice-weekly ritual of mine changed, too. Now it was only once a week, and I had different equipment: better rope, fancier lube, and half a dozen new dildos in various sizes and shapes. Sometimes he put limits on what I could do. Sometimes I had to get it all done in half an hour, or I could only use certain bits of equipment, or I could do whatever I wanted but I wasn't allowed to come. Sometimes he cancelled those solo sessions altogether, so that the only pleasure I got was whatever he chose to give me. Once, he forbade me to do anything on my own for a month, and even when we were together, he wouldn't let me come. By week three of that regime, he'd driven me half-mad with frustration. I was alright when we were working, but as soon as I didn't have a job in front of me to focus on, I couldn't think of anything else except being fucked and getting to come. By the time he finally gave me the order, and let me finish, I was on the verge of snapping and begging out loud. But I didn't. I never crossed that line, not even when I was at my most frustrated.

Ray was so particular about the details of my solo routine, he even changed the type of soap I washed myself with in the shower beforehand. The carbolic stuff went straight in the bin the minute he saw it, and in its place he gave me a set of toiletries that smelled of menthol, all in fancy little tins and bottles. I had to use those every day, whether I was seeing Ray or not. Even when he wasn't there, I felt like I'd prepared myself for him, like he could arrive at a moment's notice and I'd be ready for him, just the way he wanted. It got me excited, but it was comforting too, especially when Ray was out of town without me. I'd never been the type to pine, before I met Ray. Once we'd gotten together, it was like the part of me that could be lonely and yearn for things was unlocked, and now I had to seize every possible opportunity to feel close to him, no matter how small.

Every few months, Ray went away for the weekend with Mr Middleton. I didn't know exactly what went on during these trips, but ever since I started working for Ray, it was an accepted fact that every so often he'd be out of town for a few days, and we weren't allowed to get in touch with him at all unless it was a real emergency. I remember Sidney saying once: _I bet those weekends are the only peace and quiet either of them ever gets, you know._ So when Ray said one day that he was going away for the weekend, I didn't bat an eyelid. I just resigned myself to a few days of loneliness, and asked him if there was anything he needed me to do while he was away.

"Quite a lot of things," he said, with that sharp smile of his, the one that means I'm going to be put through my paces. "I'll leave you a list."

 

* * *

 

The phone rang at ten o'clock on the dot. I let it ring twice, and then picked up the receiver.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Lee," he said, full of warmth. "Have you done everything I asked you to?"

"Yes, sir." I nodded as if he could see me. "I've got everything set up here the way you wanted me to, as well."

"Are you on the bed?"

"Yes, sir. I've got the phone on the bedside table, so I can put the receiver on the pillow."

"Good boy," he said, and I could imagine his smile. "Are you naked?"

"Yes, sir, and I'm tied up the way you said." This time my hands were free, but I had my ankles tied to my thighs, which were tied in turn to the middle of the bedstead, so they were spread open. _As if I were holding your legs apart_ , he'd told me in his instructions. I'd been thinking about that as I tied myself up, and I was hard before I'd finished the last knot.

"Alright, now put the receiver on the pillow," he ordered, much more firmly, "and start preparing yourself.

"Yes, sir." I put the receiver where he told me, on its side, next to where my head usually lay. The glossy black finish of the plastic reminded me of the shine on Ray's shoes. Lying back down against the pillow was like lying at his feet, I thought. That's what I pictured, as I wetted my fingers with lube. I kept my face close to the receiver, so he could hear the way my breathing changed as my fingertips circled the rim of my ass. I pushed a couple of fingers inside, right up to the knuckle, and then I heard Ray's laughter softly, next to my ear.

"Don't rush yourself, Lee," he said, tutting. "Take it slowly. Make it last."

"Yes, sir," I said, closing my eyes. "Sorry, sir."

"How does it feel?"

"Good," I said, moving my fingers slowly in and out. "But I want something bigger inside me, sir."

"I know, you always do." A bit of laughter roughened his voice. "Do you think you can take another finger yet?"

"Yes, sir, I think so."

"Alright, then, go ahead."

"Thank you, sir," I said, and did as I was told. I was thinking about how different his fingers feel from mine, when they're inside me. My hands are small and a bit squat, with calluses running along underneath the middle fingers and across the palms. His hands are much bigger, long-fingered and broad, with thick hair near the wrists, and calluses on his palms that are rougher than mine. He's still got them now, those calluses. Sometimes I point at them and say: _Each one of those is a job you should have delegated to me_. And he shakes his head, and says: _Oh, you'd like it if my hands were soft, would you_? And I grin and say _No sir,_ and he laughs like it's still as funny as the first time I made the joke, all those years ago.

"Are you warmed up, now?" Ray said, but he must have known that I was. He could probably have predicted my timing down to the last second.

"Yes, sir," I said, and I shoved my fingers in as deep as they'd go, just to prove my point. "Can I switch to using one of the toys, please?"

"Alright," he said. "Use the red leather one."

"Yes, sir." I slid my fingers out, and got to work lubing the red dildo up. It was long and thick, and the base of it was almost wider that my wrist.

"Take it slowly," Ray ordered, just as I was beginning to push it inside me. "Nice and easy, remember, like a good boy."

I nodded as if he could see me, and said "Yes, sir," and slowed my hand down. I thought about the last time he'd watched me using the red dildo, the way he'd smiled as it sank into my ass, the way he'd grabbed hold of my wrist halfway through so he could take over the pace and the rhythm. I thought about his hands gripping me, controlling me, one holding my ankles and the other driving that toy into me. The memory alone made me squirm. My cock was aching to be touched, but Ray hadn't given the order yet, so I ignored it as much as I could, and kept working the dildo deeper inside me, little by little, inch by inch, slowly and carefully, exactly as he would have done.

"I wish it was you, sir," I said, once the dildo was in all the way. "I wish it was your cock inside me."

"It will be, soon enough." It sounded like a threat, the way he said it so gravely. "When I get back to town, I'm going to spend the whole day fucking that perfect ass of yours."

The thought drew a groan out of me. I shifted my head a little closer to the receiver, and started to work the dildo in and out of my ass, very slowly, in shallow little strokes. "I want it," I said, quietly. "I want it so much, sir."

"I know," he said, and I could imagine his eyes looking down at me, seeing right through me. "You can't get enough, can you?"

"No, sir." I shook my head. "Never enough of you, sir."

"Faster, now," he ordered. "Do it as roughly as I would."

"Yes, sir," I said, but the words got caught in my throat as I upped the pace. Every time I pushed it in, it felt as if the dildo was hammering against the rawest, tenderest part of me. I've never been the type to enjoy self-flagellation, but this was the closest I ever got to it.

"Tell me how it feels."

"Deep, sir…" I trailed off into a soft groan as the head of the toy hit just the right spot. "It's deep and hard and thick, and it's driving me mad, sir, like when you fuck me."

"You want to touch yourself, don't you?"

"Yes, please, sir," I said, much louder than I meant to.

Ray laughed, and said "Go ahead."

My free hand was still slippery with lube, and when I closed it around my cock, the warmth and the wetness made my back arch and my hips buck.

"That's right," he said. "That's my boy." The sound of his voice hummed in my ear, low and deep and smooth, just like it would have if he was bending over me, pinning me down. I wanted it to be his hand gripping me, but if I couldn't have that I wanted his eyes watching me, approving every stroke of my fist, every thrust of the dildo, every jerk of my hips. I kept my eyes screwed shut, and pictured his face above me. I wanted him to see everything I did, everything I thought, everything I wanted. I wanted to feel like he was always watching me.

"Stop," he ordered, abruptly and firmly.

My hands stopped dead, but I kept my eyes closed. "Yes, sir."

"Good boy," he said, so warmly it made me shiver. After a couple of seconds, he said "Alright, you can carry on," and it felt like someone had lit a fire underneath me. This time he let me get right to the edge, right to the point where my muscles tense and my throat tightens and I have to bite my lip to keep from groaning, before he said "Stop," again. This time when my hands stopped, I gave a little faint grunt of frustration without meaning to, and Ray laughed very softly. "Poor thing," he said, "you're horribly mistreated, aren't you?"

"No, sir," I said, smiling. "I'm yours, you can treat me however you want."

"You might regret saying that." He laughed again, and underneath the laughter there was a layer of something cold and hard, something that got right inside me and made me ravenous, something that soaked into every fibre of my body, every scrap of bone and skin and muscle, something that made me his completely. "Carry on," he said, and as soon as my hands began to move again, I was halfway to the point of no return. I stroked myself faster and faster, pushed the dildo in as far as it would go, and held it there with my hand flat to the base. The thickest part of it was inside me now, stretching my ass wide around it, just like Ray's cock would have done, and in my mind I pictured his shaft sinking into me, filling me up and spreading me open.

"You're very close, aren't you?"

"Very, sir," I said, and my voice sound taut, like I was holding up the world with one hand. "If I don't stop soon, I—"

"Come for me," he ordered, inescapably firmly. "Now."

I could picture him giving the command. Eyes hard and gleaming, pinning me in place. Lips smiling, the white of his teeth just showing. Hands folded casually in his lap, hiding the strength that he could inflict on me if he only chose to reach out and seize hold of me. I imagined him watching me from a chair in the corner, surveying me like he surveyed the maps of our territory, taking in every inch of the sight, smiling his approval as he watched. I bit my lip to keep from crying out, but I could barely stifle the sounds I was making. Close to my ear, Ray's voice was saying "That's right, let it all go, let me hear it all," and when I was finished, he said "Good boy," very softly, as if he was talking to himself.

"Thank you, sir," I said, quietly. "Thank you for letting me come."

"You deserved it," he said, and there was a pause, and then he cleared his throat. "Right then, I want you to get cleaned up and go to bed, now. You've got to be up bright and early tomorrow morning, remember?"

"Yes, sir." I picked up the towel from the table and dried my hands off as I listened to him.

"I'll be ringing you at eight, so I want you to be showered, dressed, and finished with breakfast by then."

"Yes, sir, I won't be late."

"That's my boy," he said, so warmly it felt like his arms were around me. "Sleep well, Lee."

"Sir?" I said suddenly, grabbing hold of the receiver.

"What is it?"

"I miss you, sir."

Ray laughed quietly. "I know, Lee, you said so this morning."

"But I still do, sir," I said, smiling. "So I wanted to say it again."

Ray laughed again, and said "Well, in case you've forgotten, I miss you too."


	9. Chapter 9

As time went on, Ray became slightly more comfortable delegating things to me and the others, but there were some things he never relinquished. Mainly, he kept a hand in those little symbolic jobs that he called _Sending a Message_. The incident by the seafront was the first time he took me along on one of those, but far from the last.

It started in a small way. One week there was an extra item on my to-do list: in amongst all the stuff about picking up his dry-cleaning and arranging his diary, he told me to get in touch with the neighbourhood bosses and see if there were any small recurring problems in their areas.

"Any trivial annoyances," he said, with a light smile. "I want to hear about everything, no matter how small."

"But if it's trivial, sir, why don't you let the lower-ranking guys take care of it?"

He put his hand on my shoulder and said "Because this is my turf, and even the pettiest troublemaker needs to know that there's always a chance it'll be _me_ who comes to shut him down."

So, I did as I was told, and made a list of all the little issues each district had been dealing with. It was nothing the local bosses couldn't have dealt with on their own. A misbehaving copper here, a swindling bookkeeper there, a few small businesses that were late on their dues, and one gang of delinquents who were causing trouble down by the seafront shops.

"The seafront it is, then," Ray said, when I'd shown him the list. "Nothing like a bunch of teenagers to give you a workout."

 

* * *

 

I could see the gang in the distance, standing outside the amusement arcade, shouting and jeering at the few late-night tourists who weren't safely tucked away in a nightclub or a theatre. There were nine hoodlums, but from the amount of noise they made you'd have thought it was double that. They were all wearing black leather jackets that were so glossy they looked almost wet, especially with the lights of the amusements gleaming on them. Most of the gang looked like teenagers, but there were a few who might have been in their twenties, and if they _were_ , then they really should have known better. One of those older, burlier guys was swinging a bicycle chain around and around, posturing at anyone who looked his way. A younger guy was throwing stones at the shop-front across the road, and as I watched, he picked up half a brick and lobbed it. The glass of the window shattered, and in the distance I could hear dogs barking, almost drowned out by all the hooting and laughing.

"Broken bones only," Ray said, handing me a blackjack from his briefcase. "No shooting unless absolutely necessary, alright?"

I weighed the blackjack in my hands and nodded, and said "Yes, sir." I would have shot down the whole lot of them if he'd told me to, but I wasn't unhappy with the instruction. I like blackjacks and batons, especially the longer, heavier type. They feel like an extension of my arm, only with more muscle and weight to it. I'm not romantic about the feeling of skin on skin when it comes to this stuff, not like Ray is. Whatever gets the job done fastest, that's what I'm in favour of.

"Right then," he said, with a broad smile. "Showtime."

They spotted us as soon as we got out of the car. A couple of the older ones seemed to recognise Ray, or at least to understand that he was bad news, and their eyes went wide as we approached. The younger guys puffed up their chests and squared their shoulders, and came swaggering towards us, shouting out gruff little challenges and insults. In the distance behind the gang, I could see the few remaining tourists who hadn't already made themselves scarce hanging back and watching. I envied them a bit, because they got to watch the whole thing go down, like a night at the pictures. They should have envied me more, though, because I could see Ray in action up close and personal.

"That one, Lee," he said, nodding towards the biggest of the punks, a stocky blond guy with a gormless, childlike face. "Use him for a warm-up."

I ran at the blond, who just scoffed and stood his ground. I hit him square in the face, and then rammed the handle of the blackjack against his throat. He doubled over, coughing and spluttering, so I brought the blackjack down over his bent back. He straightened up, staring at me with bloodshot blue eyes. His pink skin was flushing bright red at the cheeks, and to me he looked like nothing more than a furious animal, like livestock, charging and snorting, with nothing but pain and anger inside him. I dodged his punches and brought the blackjack down on the back of his head, and when he hit the floor, I kicked him in the face for good measure.

"Are you warmed up, now?" Ray said, from the middle of the street. When I looked up, a couple of the younger hoodlums were already curled up on the ground, one clutching his arm, and the other one hugging his midsection. Their faces were bruised and red, and you could hear them wheezing, struggling to breathe through mouths thick with blood and broken teeth.

"I think so, sir," I said, running over to his side. One of the older punks was just launching himself at Ray as I reached them. Ray caught the guy's wrist, and brought the other hand up to grip his elbow. I could hear the crunch of the bone breaking, as he twisted the arm and snapped it. The guy shouted and shrieked loud enough to hurt my ears. Ray made it look effortless, like a swan swimming, only I knew exactly how hard he was working to put on a show this good. Watching him gave me a thrill almost as heady as having those hands on my body, holding me down, hurting me instead. I stood stock still for a moment, and felt my heart racing and my fists clenching and my cock twitching, as hard as if I was watching Ray with the boys at the Second Circle.

"Don't stand there gawping, Lee," he laughed. "I didn't bring you along just for company."

"Sorry, sir," I said, wincing. It was hard, though, to keep my mind on the job. I took down two more of those hoodlums, but I kept sneaking glances at Ray as I did it. A blackjack to the face, and then a quick look at him, just in time to see him wrench a guy's shoulder out of joint. A kick in the stomach, and then a stolen glance at Ray as he broke a punk's fingers, one by one, as if he was idly killing time. Those guys made a real racket when they were having fun, but that was nothing compared to the noises that came out of them while Ray sent his message. The screams must have been audible right down on the pier.

When every one of those hoodlums was down on the ground, I did the big finish exactly the way Ray had told me to. I went over to the guy who looked like he was in charge, and I put my foot on his throat. "You keep these boys in line," I said, grinding my heel down against his windpipe. "Or next time it won't just be a beating, understand?"

When I took my foot off his throat, the guy wheezed out "Yeah, I understand."

I waited until he'd rolled over onto his front and started to push himself up off the floor, and then I put my foot on his back. "Now apologise to Mr Blake," I said, shoving him back down so he was flat to the ground. "Say sorry like a good boy, and you can all go home."

"I'm sorry," the guy said, so hoarse you'd think he was being strangled. "We're sorry, Mr Blake. It won't happen again."

"That's what I like to hear," Ray laughed, turned on his heel, and began to walk off towards the car. "Come on, Lee. Time we were heading home, too."

We were halfway to Ray's apartment before he said anything. He just sat in the backseat, looking out of the window. Every so often I glanced at him in the mirror, just to check he was alright. He looked a bit tired, but happy and relaxed.

"Lee," he said, eventually, "did you get a kick out of all that?"

"Yes, sir," I said. "I enjoyed watching you." I wondered if he could tell how aroused I still was, just by the look on my face or the sound of my voice.

He laughed quietly, and said "You're hard right now, aren't you?"

"Yes, sir." I nodded and glanced at him in the mirror. He was smiling, and he met my eyes with so much warmth and approval that it made my skin prickle. I smiled back, and said "Are you, sir?"

He just laughed, and said "It's a good job we're almost home."

We had a routine we always followed, when there wasn't enough time for a full session. Usually we'd do this in-between meetings, but sometimes we did it late at night, before I went home, when neither of us could stand to wait until the next day. I knew that's what Ray was planning, and I was in position on my knees on his living room carpet before he'd finished locking the door behind us.

"Eager for it, aren't you?" he said, coming over to stand in front of me.

I looked up at him, and smiled, and said "Yes, sir."

One hand rested on the top of my head, stroking my hair, as he unbuttoned his fly with the other. He was as hard as I was, and my mouth watered at the sight of him. I bent my head when he pulled me forward, and kept my hands on my thighs as he slid his cock into my mouth.

"That's right," he said quietly, with a soft sigh of relief, like nothing could have made him more content. "That's right, good boy."

I made a muffled happy noise around him, and closed my eyes. There was nothing in the world except the feeling of his cock against my tongue, and the taste of his skin, and the weight of his hand on my head. I knew what he wanted, and I could have done it all unguided, but he kept his grip firm, and moved my head up and down in the shallow, rough rhythm that always did the job quickest. It took a few minutes, maybe five at the most, before he was shoving me down and telling me to swallow. I drank it all, silently and gratefully, and when he'd finished, I waited until he pulled me off him by the hair.

"Your turn," he ordered, yanking my head back so I had to meet his eyes.

I said "Yes, sir," and unfastened my trousers. My hand felt hot and damp around my cock, and between that and Ray's eyes staring down at me, I was halfway there before the third stroke. It didn't take much at all. Just a few minutes of my fist working tightly over my shaft, and Ray's hand twisting just as tightly in my hair. I bit my lip hard as I came, and tried to catch it all in my handkerchief, so I didn't spill a drop. I smiled to myself as I caught my breath, wondering whether he would have made me stay behind to scrub the carpet clean, if I hadn't been so careful.

"You look pleased with yourself," he laughed, ruffling my hair.

I grinned at him, and said "I'm just happy, sir."

He looked at me, and brought his hand down to grip the back of my neck. "Stay the night," he said, as firmly as he would have given any other order.

"Okay, sir." I nodded. "Why, though? I thought you didn't like having boys hanging around getting in your way."

"Call it impatience," he said, as he helped me up to my feet. "I want to see you first thing in the morning, and I don't feel like waiting."

"Thank you, sir." The words didn't feel like enough, so I held onto his arm, and said them again. "Thank you."

"Come on, you need to get some rest." He gave me a little push towards the door to the hall.

"Through here, sir?" I said, leading the way down the corridor.

"That's right."

We went past the first couple of doors, which led to the bathroom and the guest room that we'd used the few times Ray had decided he wanted to fuck me over a bed. The door at the end of the corridor led to his bedroom, but I'd never been inside. We stopped outside it, and he pointed to the door diagonally across from his.

"You can sleep in there."

"Can't I sleep with you, in your bed, sir?" I opened the door of the spare room, and peered in at the bare magnolia walls and the plain wooden furniture.

"I can't sleep if there's someone in the room with me." He shook his head and gave me a pained smile, as if he was admitting a weakness. "I had to share a bed with Vic when we were growing up, and now it reminds me too much of being a kid. It makes me feel like I'm back there, and I can't relax."

"Well, sir, as long as I can sleep nearby, I'm happy." I smiled at him, and his expression brightened, and I felt like everything in the entire world was perfect, just the way it was. "What time do you want waking up, sir?"

"Oh, not too early," he said, patting me on the shoulder. "Half past five will do."


	10. Chapter 10

That room with the magnolia walls became my room very quickly. Once he'd let me stay overnight for the first time, Ray seemed to make his mind up that the convenience of having me around outweighed any of the drawbacks. One week I stayed over twice, and the next week it was four times. The week after that, I only spent one night in my own bed. The fourth week, I only went home to pick up a few changes of clothes. By the time me and Ray had been together a year, I was sleeping at his place every night, and my own flat had become basically a glorified storage unit.

What I liked most about living with Ray was the opportunity to cater to his needs more fully. It was only once I'd been living there for a week, for example, that I realised he was in the habit of doing all his own cooking and cleaning, because he couldn't stand to have a professional in his apartment on a regular basis to do it for him. I took over all of that, as soon as I realised. I'm not great at domestic stuff, I couldn't let Ray do his own drudgework.

The other benefit of taking on the housekeeping was that I finally got to see the inside of Ray's bedroom. The walls were burgundy, the curtains were bronze-coloured, and the carpet was the same as the curtains but darker, so that the whole room was gloomy enough you needed the lamp on even in the middle of the day. The furniture was all big, dark wooden stuff that looked like it'd come from a museum. All the surfaces were empty, except for two things: a clock on the mantelpiece, and a framed photograph of Ray with Vic and Mr Middleton, which was on the bedside table.

Every time I tidied the room, I stopped in front of that photo and looked at it. There was so little else in the room, it would have been impossible not to get stuck on it, and after a month or so, I could have sketched it from memory. It showed the three of them standing on the pier, in front of the railings at the end. Ray and Vic looked young, maybe my age or a little bit older. They were wearing dark overcoats, buttoned up, and you could just see the folds of their ties and the gleam of their tie-pins, peeking through from under their unknotted scarves. Ray had a dark shirt on, and Vic wore a light one. Ray was smiling at the camera, very broadly, as if he didn't trust whoever was taking the photo. Vic was frowning, and he looked like he was warning the photographer to do a good job. Mr Middleton was standing in-between the twins, smiling as if he had the world on a string. He was much older than them, probably in his late forties or early fifties. That was way out of my age bracket back then, but you could tell he'd been handsome when he was younger. A bit short, maybe a bit soft-looking, but the eyes and the nose and the cheekbones were what you'd expect on a film star from thirty years ago. I wondered if he acted like one. If he talked like Stefan and Patrick, or if you grew out of all that when you hit your forties. If he'd be friendly to me, or if he'd just ignore me. If he'd approve of me, or just tolerate me.

I looked at that photo of Mr Middleton every day for weeks and weeks, and day by day that curiosity started to turn into a real, pressing need. I don't know what tipped me over the edge. One day I just woke up and thought to myself: _Why hasn't Ray introduced me to Mr Middleton yet?_ And once I'd had that thought, I couldn't put the question off, not even til after breakfast.

That morning, as soon as Ray came into the kitchen and sat down at the table, I said "Can I meet Mr Middleton, sir?"

He looked at me silently for a second, as I put the breakfast tray down in front of him, and then he shook his head and said "No."

"Why not, sir?"

And all of a sudden we were back where we had been a year ago, with him avoiding my eyes and smiling fixedly and hiding behind that wall of nonchalance. "It's not the right time, that's all," he said, shrugging, and picked up his cup of tea. "Maybe a few months down the line, we'll see."

I shook my head and said "You're lying, sir. You're pretending like it's not a big deal, but it is. I want to know the real reason."

"It's _not_ a big deal. Anyway, there's a lot going on at the moment, you know that. It's a busy time for everyone. Haven't you got enough on your plate," he laughed, "without inventing reasons to get upset? Maybe I need to give you a bit more work to do, if you've got time to be dreaming up things like this."

The more he talks, the more uncomfortable he is. I knew that, even back then. Maybe right at the beginning, I would have felt timid enough to back off when he started evading the issue, but after two years of being around Ray, I wasn't going to be fobbed off so easily. "You keep trying to avoid and deflect, sir," I said, "but it doesn't work on me, not anymore. Why can't I meet Mr Middleton?"

"Because you can't," he snapped, putting his cup down with a bang. "And that's the end of it."

If you give me a choice between fake nonchalance or honest anger, I'll take the second every time, but it still wasn't the openness I wanted. "Alright, sir," I said, shrugging. "When you're ready to tell me what the real reason is, let me know."

 

* * *

 

After that argument, he carried on like everything was fine, but he wasn't fooling anyone. It was obvious to me, so it must have been glaring to Vic and Mr Middleton. I didn't pretend like there was nothing wrong, but I didn't bring the issue up again, either. I just got on with things, and waited. I probably would have waited forever, to be honest, if it hadn't been for Stefan sticking his oar in.

I was in town picking up some of Ray's winter suits, when Stefan found me. He made it very casual, and at the time I thought it was just an unlucky coincidence that he happened to be on the high street at exactly the moment I came out of the dry-cleaners.

"Lee!" A thin, strident voice called out, full of happy surprise. "Lee, darling, over here!"

I turned around, and saw Stefan coming out of the shop over the road, waving with his free hand. He had his coat slung over the other arm, but no shopping. That was all carried by the fresh-faced young guy trailing after him, and judging by the number of boxes and bags the poor chump had in his arms, Stefan must have spent half Vic's annual budget.

"What a coincidence!" Stefan said, putting his hand on my arm. "I was thinking only the other day that it's been _such_ a long time since we had a chance to spend some time together, you know, just the two of us."

"It's been a while," I said, nodding.

"Let's go and have a cup of tea together, shall we? My treat. Come on, there's a wonderful little café around the corner from here, it's not far at all." He slipped his arm through mine, and as casual as it looked, the grip he had on me was iron-tight. As we set off walking, he glanced over his shoulder and said "Do keep up, Marcel, you aren't being paid to dawdle."

We went into a café near where the shops start to be replaced by restaurants and clubs. It was one of those expensive places aimed at tourists, where all the furniture is delicate and uncomfortable, and all the food and drink comes on flowery crockery that look like it might break if you pick it up too roughly. We sat down at a table near the window, and Stefan ordered for both of us: a pot of one of those floral teas that make you feel like you're drinking perfume. I could see Marcel outside, standing next to the pile of boxes and bags, smoking and watching the tourists passing by.

"Now, dear," Stefan said, once the tea was poured, and Marcel was on his second cigarette. "I hope you won't think I'm being terribly nosy, but I couldn't help noticing that there's been a bit of a…" He paused, pursed his lips, and lowered his voice a little. "A tiff, shall we say, between you and Ray."

I drank a bit of my tea, and tried not to grimace. "We had an argument, yeah."

"You poor thing," he said, reaching over to pat my hand. "You must feel absolutely _dreadful_." The way he said it, I got the impression he would have been disappointed if I'd been anything less than miserable.

"Well, yeah, of course," I said. "But I've just got to wait it out."

He smiled, and said "Not necessarily, dear. He loves you, after all, and that means you have the power to influence him, if you choose to."

I shook my head. "I don't want to influence him. I just want to know why he's being like this."

"Oh," Stefan said quietly. "Well, listen, darling—I'm sure you're aware that there are only two people in the world who really understand how Ray's mind works."

I nodded, and said "Yeah, I know."

"And of course Vic would never interfere himself, even though he can see _perfectly_ well what the problem is."

"But you would?"

"Oh, that's not a very nice way to put it!" Stefan put his hand up to cover his mouth as he laughed. "But yes, I would. Call it the folly of an old romantic, if you like. I want the two of you to be happy."

"Why?"

"Well, an unhappy Ray means an unhappy Vic," he said, "and that, my dear, means an unhappy Stefan. Isn't it wonderful how we're all connected?"

I wanted to say: _No, it's not wonderful, it's weird and confusing_. Instead I nodded, and said "So what's going on, then? What's the problem?"

"Perfectionism, darling," Stefan said, nodding sagely. "He doesn't want to introduce you to Mr Middleton until he's absolutely, positively certain that the relationship is going to last."

I frowned and shook my head. "That's stupid. You can't be a hundred percent certain about anything."

"Of course not," he said, with a little laugh, as if all of this was child's play. "Ray won't risk introducing a boy to Mr Middleton if there's even the slightest chance that the relationship will fail, and since complete certainty is impossible, the end result is that he'll _never_ agree to introduce you."

"No, that's stupid," I said again. "Ray's not an idiot. He wouldn't take such a stupid attitude."

"Well, all of this is Vic's appraisal of the situation, dear," Stefan said lightly, with a little shrug. "If you want to quibble, you're quite welcome to take it up with Vic yourself."

The look in his eyes was frosty as he said it. It sounded half a threat and half a dare. I didn't feel like taking him up on either, so I shook my head and said "No, you're probably right." I tried a smile, too, even though I wasn't sure he'd take it the right way. "Thanks, Stefan. I'd have been clueless if you hadn't stepped in when you did."

"Oh, not at all," he said, beaming at me. "The least I could do, darling. Now, I really should be going—Marcel will be freezing to death out there, poor little thing."

"Alright," I said, attempting another smile. "It was nice to see you anyway."

"Likewise, dear," he said, and then more loudly, he added "Do say hello to Ray for me, when you see him!"

He'd swept out of the café and away down the street with Marcel, before I realised he'd left me to pay the bill.

 

* * *

 

Once Stefan had told me what was what, I didn't waste any time deliberating. When I saw Ray later on that evening, I got right to the point.

"I know why you won't let me meet Mr Middleton," I said, before I'd finished helping him off with his coat.

"Oh, do you?" He sounded very casual and sceptical, as if we were doing the crossword together and I'd suggested a ridiculous word.

"I bumped into Stefan in town."

"Did you?" There was a lot more weight in his tone, just for a second, before the nonchalance reasserted itself. "Well, I wouldn't put too much stock in what Stefan says. You know what these glamour boys are like, all drama and histrionics, but there's nothing to it, it's just hot air—"

"Come on, sir." I interrupted him, shaking my head. Somehow, when I listened to him dismissing Stefan like that, it crystallised for me exactly how wrong I'd been to do the same thing, and now I found myself doubly annoyed: once for myself, and once for Stefan. "You talk like him and the other boys are a bunch of airheads," I carried on, "but I _know_ that's not what you really think. Stefan can see what's going on just as well as your brother can. And if you don't mind me saying, sir, I reckon the only one who's full of hot air around here is you."

Ray smiled at me, in that mild way of his that means he's half amused and half tempted to drop you off the end of the pier. Then he sat down in the armchair near the fireplace, and said "Alright, then. Let's have it."

I hung his coat up, and came over to sit on the footstool next to him. "You won't let me meet Mr Middleton because you're worried me and you aren't going to last."

He didn't say anything. He just looked at me silently, still smiling that slight smile.

"And you're right, sir," I said. "We might not last. You might get sick of me. You might decide you want someone younger and prettier. You might decide you don't want anyone around at all. Who knows, _I_ might even get sick of _you_ , sir. Anything could happen."

Ray nodded, and said "Go on."

"Well, that's the thing, sir. Anything could happen, no matter how certain you feel. D'you think, sir, that Mr Middleton was completely sure about you and your brother, when he took you under his wing? D'you think he wasn't taking a gamble?"

"No," Ray said. "No, I don't."

"No-one can be certain about anything, not where you've got feelings involved. Feelings make everything unpredictable, sir. Even I know that. But I don't think that's a good reason to put me on hold and keep me at a distance, sir."

"No," he said, but I couldn't tell whether he was agreeing or disagreeing with me.

"Look, sir," I carried on, "I don't want you to keep me at a distance, but it's your choice. If you're going to let me get closer, it's got to be because you _want_ me to. So I'll wait. If you change your mind tomorrow, that's fine. If you change your mind ten years from now, that's fine too. Even if you never change your mind, I want to spend the rest of my life with you anyway. I'd rather be held at a distance than lose you altogether, sir."

He looked at me, long and hard. There's nothing more frightening than Ray looking at you silently, but I was as hopeful as I was scared. Whatever happened, I reckoned I'd done the right thing. Even if he threw me out, even if he never wanted to see me again, at least I'd tried. At least I'd taken the risk.

"I need to think about all of this," he said, after a minute or so. "I think you're right, Lee, but I need time to get used to the idea."

Before I could help myself, I'd blurted out "You're not going to send me away again, are you, sir?"

"No," he said, so vehemently it shocked me. "No, of course not." Then he laughed, and reached across to put his hands on my arms, and said "You're not going anywhere, mister."


	11. Chapter 11

"Turn left here," he said.

"Yes, sir."

I turned into the lane, and Ray pointed to a big arched wooden gateway in the distance, set back amongst the trees. "That's it, over there on the right."

The drive was so long and winding that you barely noticed as you drove along it just how much height you were gradually gaining. Mostly it was bordered with densely-packed trees, but occasionally there were little breaks in the coverage, and you'd catch a glimpse of the city in the distance, getting smaller and smaller as the drive climbed higher and higher. Then the trees would crowd in again, which each side almost meeting the other overhead, like a long tunnelled bower. With the city out of sight, it was easy to forget how close we were to the buildings and roads that made up our daily life. We could have been in the middle of nowhere. We could have been in another country altogether. By the time we drove through the inner gates and pulled up in front of the house, I felt like I was in a different world.

"Here we are," Ray said, warmly and happily. He'd been living in his own apartment for fifteen years, but the look on his face told me very clearly that this was his real home. It didn't look like anyone's home to me, though. It looked like one of those small stately piles that's been turned into a museum and opened to the public, and when we went up the pale stone steps, I felt like we should have been getting our wallets out to pay for admission.

"Brace yourself," he said, and he took out a set of keys I'd never seen him use before. The longest of them unlocked the front door, which swung open with a creak. We stepped inside, into a long, dark green hallway, and as I closed the door behind us, I heard sharp footsteps coming quickly down the stairs.

"He's out in the garden," a gruff voice said.

"Hello, Clive," Ray said, and when I turned around, he was smiling at a tall, thin, grey-haired man in a crisp black suit. "How's everything?"

"Now there's a daft question if ever I heard one." Clive tutted. "If I answer that properly, we'll be here all day. Come on, give me your coats, and go and say hello to Mr Middleton. The hoovering needs doing in here, and I don't want you two in the way giving the lads a reason to put it off."

"Alright, alright," Ray laughed. In his face, I could see a little flicker of the young man I'd never known. I took his coat, shrugged my own off, and handed both of them to Clive, who glanced at me but didn't say a word.

"Follow me," Ray said, putting his hand on my shoulder. "We'll go out through the back."

"And tell him to be careful with those dahlia bulbs," Clive called after us. "I had to go into town to buy them, and one trip down there's quite enough for this month, thank you very much."

The hall seemed to go on forever, and then suddenly we were in a big, wood-beamed kitchen. There were pots and pans everywhere, and clutter on every surface, and yet I felt like moving one item even slightly would have earned me a talking-to from Clive. I kept my hands to myself, as we passed through and headed out the back door.

The garden seemed small at first, but as we walked down the path, I realised that the hedge beside us was just a divider. Turning the corner showed me the full view of the back garden, and the size of it hit me like a slap in the face. It sloped down, gradually and gently, and a winding footpath snaked across the hill like a little paved echo of the driveway. There were flowerbeds at regular intervals, big round curving things, some full of brightly-coloured plants, and some empty. Next to one of the empty beds, Mr Middleton was kneeling down on a cushion, jabbing a trowel at the soil in front of him.

"You really need to get someone in to help you with all this, sir," Ray said, as we approached.

"Oh, nonsense," Mr Middleton said, getting up. "I wouldn't dream of it. The longer I spend tending to the garden, the less inclined I feel to do anything else."

He was much older than I was expecting, because I'd been basing my idea of Mr Middleton on that photo in Ray's bedroom. But that was taken years ago, and now the softly handsome fifty-year-old was a bonier, sharper-looking sixty-five. He still had those good-humoured eyes, though, and he still smiled as if the whole world belonged to him. Even in crumpled linen and grass-stained tweed, he carried himself like it really did.

"Sir, this is Lee," Ray said, putting his hand on my back.

"Ah, at last, the young man I've been hearing so much about." Mr Middleton smiled at me, took off one of his gardening gloves, and put out his hand. I shook it gently, as if I was handling a holy relic, but his grip was as firm and steady as mine ever was. _He's getting on a bit_ , I chided myself, _but don't underestimate him_.

"Hello," I said, giving him my best smile. "Thank you for agreeing to meet me, sir."

"Agreeing?" Mr Middleton laughed, and patted my shoulder. "My dear boy, I've been asking Raymond to bring you over for months. In fact, I was starting to wonder whether you might be a figment of his imagination!"

"Likewise," I said, imitating the way I'd heard Stefan and his friends being chatty with each other. "I thought he might be making you up too, sir."

"Yes, I imagine you did," he said, glancing at Ray with a smile, and then he turned back to me. "I seldom make an appearance in town, these days, it's quite true. I'm merely a voice on the end of the telephone, issuing inscrutable commands that my poor boys have the misfortune of implementing. And do you know, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Raymond and his brother pretended they were still taking orders from me, long after I was dead and buried."

"Sir!" Ray said, shaking his head. "I don't know why you've got to be so morbid."

"The privilege of age, dear boy," he said, giving the two of us a smile like a painted saint, "is that I may talk about whatever I wish, whenever I wish."

I laughed, but inside I was thinking: _Yeah, only I'll bet you had that power even when you were Ray's age_.

"Now, come and sit down," he said, waving his hand towards the table and chairs on the patio across from the footpath.

We both said "Yes, sir," at the same time, and I was struck by the difference between our voices. Ray's was deeper and smoother and had a touch of Mr Middleton's southern accent. Mine was higher, gruffer, and fairly broad. I wondered whether my voice would start to sound like Ray's eventually, whether the rough edges would get filed down somehow, whether time and experience would deepen it, whether I'd pick up the accent he'd learned from Mr Middleton, as if he was passing it down like an heirloom. I wondered what Ray had sounded like when he was my age. I worked out that when he was twenty-six, I would have been thirteen. While he was helping Mr Middleton take over the city, I would have been starting secondary school. I thought about that, and I had a funny little daydream about bumping into Ray on one of the days I bunked off school and went into town. Me as a skiving kid, him as a cocky young hoodlum. He wouldn't have even noticed me. I would have been just another ant on the path in front of him. Maybe I'd have caught a hint of his cologne as he swept by me, but I probably wouldn't have even gotten that close. I'd probably have ducked into the nearest doorway and hid, the minute I saw him.

"Well then, Lee," Mr Middleton said, as we all sat down. "Tell me, what do you think of the garden?"

"I like how big it is," I said, "and how far away you feel from everything else, with it being so high up."

"That," he said, with a delighted smile, "is precisely what I had in mind when I bought this place." And he started to tell me all about the way the house had looked when he was first considering buying it, and all the work he had to do to get it shipshape, and how it cost less than a rickety old terrace house would have done back then, because of how run-down and remote the place was. He did a lot of talking, but somehow it didn't wind me up. I liked his voice. Not the way I like Ray's, mind you, not the way that gives me the shivers. It just sounded firm and comforting, and there was a steady rhythm to it that made me feel like everything was alright.

"Now, I can see that one of our party is bored to tears, having listened to this story at least a dozen times before." Mr Middleton turned to Ray with a smile. "Why don't you go inside and fetch some drinks, Raymond? I'm sure your young man and I will have plenty to talk about in your absence."

Ray got up, and said "Yes, sir," and only glanced back towards us once, with a bit of worry in his eyes, as he headed back up the footpath. I watched him until he'd disappeared around the corner, and then I turned back to Mr Middleton and gave him another smile, for whatever that was worth.

"What did you want to talk about, sir?"

"I wanted to say that I'm grateful to you for bearing with him," Mr Middleton said quietly, "and that I appreciate how difficult Raymond can be. You've quite a task on your hands, dear boy!" He laughed, and when he'd finished laughing, he looked at me silently for a moment, and nodded. "Yes, you've taken on quite a burden, but you seem to me to be more than capable—and, of course," he carried on, with a soft smile, "if you do run into difficulties as things move along, Victor and I will always be happy to listen."

I thought about going to Vic with my problems, and I didn't like the idea at all. Then I thought about talking to Stefan instead, as an intermediary, and I didn’t like that idea either. I decided then and there that it'd be Mr Middleton I asked for help, if it ever came to it. "Thank you, sir," I said, trying my smile again. "That's very nice of you."

"Ah, and here he is," Mr Middleton said, more loudly this time. When I turned around, Ray was heading down the footpath with a little tray in one hand, and as he approached, Mr Middleton laughed and said "My dear boy, you must have hurried around that kitchen at a rate of knots, to be back so quickly—I might almost think you were rushing deliberately."

"Wouldn't dream of it, sir," Ray said, as he set the tray down. There was a glass of water on it, and two cups of tea: Ray's afternoon Assam, and something honey-coloured for Mr Middleton. "As it happens, Clive already had these steeping when I went up. I think he might be trying to do me and Vic out of a job, you know."

"Good lord," Mr Middleton laughed. "Can you imagine Clive as the successor to all of this? That certainly would be a very well-regimented organisation, wouldn't it?"

"It'd be like the army, sir," Ray said, "only not quite so lax on the discipline."

"And perhaps a little better paid." Mr Middleton chuckled again, and then his smile faded a bit, and he said "Joking aside, boys, I really do think that choosing the right successor is vital. Absolutely vital. It's one of the most important questions you'll ever have to ask yourself, Raymond. And you need only look to the south to see what the consequences can be, if you put the question off." Mr Middleton gave a brief, slightly bitter laugh. "I've said it before, Raymond, and I'll say it again: when I'm gone, you and Victor may do as you please with what I've left behind—expand it, maintain it, sell it off, whatever you like," he said, gesturing with a flourish towards the city below us, "but _please_ don't let it fall to ruin out of short-sightedness, out of the sheer unwillingness to ask yourself a difficult question. I swear, Raymond, if you behave after I'm gone as Aldous Nash's boys are behaving now, I shall come back and haunt you."

Ray smiled, brittle and slight. "I wouldn't blame you, sir. It's a shame, to see such a strong group falling to pieces so quickly. I can remember when they were still a force to be reckoned with. That was, what, five, maybe ten years ago? And look at them now."

Mr Middleton nodded, and drank a bit more of his tea, and then started to reminisce with Ray about how it was twenty years ago, when Mr Nash's group was at the peak of its power. I listened, keeping an ear out for any details I hadn't heard before, but at the same time I was thinking about one big question: _what's going to happen to us, after Mr Middleton's gone?_ I thought about Vic and Ray taking over, about them having full control over their respective halves of the city, with no-one around to play umpire. I thought about the stories I read as a kid, about the Tetrarchy. I thought about how well the twins got on now, and how it seemed unthinkable that they'd ever come to blows. Then I thought about how once upon a time, it probably seemed unthinkable to Mr Nash's group that _they'd_ ever lose their grip. I sat and let it all run through my mind, and I knew then and there that I'd stand with Ray, no matter what. Even if he went up against his brother. Even if he took on the whole rest of the organisation, all at once. It wasn't even a choice. It was just a fact.

A sharp voice called out suddenly from the top of the garden, and sliced right through my train of thought. "It's half past two, sir!" Clive shouted. "Come and get changed, or you're going to be late for your appointment with Gerald."

"Do you know," Mr Middleton said quietly, "I think if I _were_ late, Clive would be far more upset about it than Gerald."

"Well, it makes him look bad, sir," Ray laughed. "Who's going to respect a gentleman's gentleman who can't get his gentleman out the door on time? That's the sort of thing that makes you feel you're losing your edge."

"I'll have you know, dear boy," Mr Middleton said, raising an eyebrow slightly, "that I am _no_ gentleman."

They both laughed, loudly and warmly. I just sipped my water and watched them. I felt as if they must have had this conversation before, like it was a little dance they'd done over and over until it was second nature, and now they enjoyed it like you enjoy re-reading your favourite book. I wondered what it would feel like, to have that kind of familiar dance in my repertoire. Back then, I didn't really believe it would ever be possible for me.

"Well, I suppose I had better do as Clive says," Mr Middleton said with a sigh. "Otherwise both he and Gerald will be unhappy with me—and if the two of them send me to Coventry, I'll be forced to rely on you young men for conversation, which simply wouldn't do."

"Alright, sir," Ray said, "enjoy your afternoon, and say hello to Gerald for me."

"Oh, I will," Mr Middleton said, as he stood up. Then he turned to me, and said "Lovely to have met you at last, Lee. Do make sure Raymond gives you a tour of the house before you leave—I'm expecting to see both of you up here again regularly from now on, so the sooner you get used to the old shack, the better!"

Ray and I both stood up, and I said "Yes, sir, I will, thank you," and when Mr Middleton put his hand out again, I shook it, as if I was wrapping up a job interview. It struck me then: maybe the last two years had been one long test, and this was the final furlong. I glanced at Ray, as Mr Middleton walked off up the footpath, and he was staring right at me, smiling slightly.

"I don't know what I was so worried about," he said, putting his hand firmly on my shoulder and squeezing it. "I should have known you wouldn't let me down."

 

* * *

 

The house was huge, and gaudily-furnished. In the living room, there was a big painting that looked sort of familiar, like I'd seen it in a book or a museum, and when I stopped to look at it, Ray said "Oh, that," and laughed. "Gerald has a side-line in forgeries. We've got all kinds of reproductions in the attic. You could probably furnish a replica Louvre with what's upstairs."

"Do you like paintings, sir?" I said, trying to remember who'd done the original of the one I was looking at. It was of Cyparissus, I knew that much, only this Cyparissus was older than you normally see him depicted, with a nice bit of muscle and a broad, solid chest, along with the usual smooth skin and soft face. He even had a bit of a tan, just like you'd expect from a boy who spends most of his time outdoors, and running around half-naked at that.

"I like them now," Ray said, "but I didn't when I was younger. I used to ask Mr Middleton why on earth he kept these around, since the pictures are so famous that no-one would believe for a minute he's got the original hanging over his mantelpiece."

"Well, you're right, sir," I said, moving a bit closer to look at the paint on Cyparissus's shoulder.

"Ah, but that's not the point," Ray said, with a little laugh that made me feel like I'd stumbled into an obvious trap. "The point isn't authenticity, it's experience. As long as you feel the same way looking at this as you would the original, then what does it matter whether it's real or fake?"

I thought about it for a minute, and shrugged. "I think it'd matter if you were trying to impress people, sir."

"Exactly," Ray said, coming forward to stand behind me. "Which is why the obvious fakes are here, and the subtle ones are at the Second Circle."

His arms slid around my waist, and he held me tightly, so that I felt as if I was wrapped up in chains, bound to something hard and inescapable. "Sir," I said, leaning back against him, "I do want to see the rest of the house, but at the same time, I can't wait til we're at home."

"So we can have a bit of privacy, you mean?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well," he said, "we don't need to go all the way home for that."

"Here, sir?"

"Not here," he said, letting go of me. "Upstairs."

I followed him out into the hallway, but when he gestured towards the staircase I took the lead. Most of the time he likes me to walk behind him, but if he's in the mood, he makes me go on ahead of him, so he can watch my ass as I walk. I knew he was watching, while I climbed those stairs. I knew he'd be looking at the way my trousers stretched taut across the most muscular bit of each buttock, and I knew he'd be thinking to himself: _Yes, that suit was a good choice, it shows him off just the way I wanted_. I think even if me and Ray lived on a desert island, he'd want me nicely-dressed. Even if his were the only eyes that ever looked at me, I'd still want to be wrapped up appealingly for him, in whatever he wanted to see.

"In here," he said, once we'd gotten to the second floor, and he opened the first door we came to. "This is my old room."

I went in first, and stood in the middle, on the rug next to the bed. It was a small room, not much bigger than mine in my old flat, and it was done up in cream and dark blue flock. There were a couple of paintings on the walls, which I vaguely recognised, that I assumed must have been more of Gerald's subtle fakes. Both of them were of the typical classical naked boy, the young, soft and pale type, the type that Cyparissus downstairs made such a nice change from. Ray saw me looking at the paintings, and came up behind me.

"My tastes have broadened a bit since I was your age," he said, putting his hands firmly on my shoulders, and then there was a long, heavy pause before he carried on. "When I was in my twenties," he said, finally, "I only went after boys who were too young to realise I was mistreating them, or too timid to object. And even then, I used to come back to this room and look at those paintings, and think: _If only real boys were as silent, and static, and as easy to ignore when I'm bored of them_."

I thought again about what it would have been like, if the teenage me had met the twenty-something Ray, and I realised then that I'd had a lucky escape. "I think, sir," I said, leaning back against him, "that maybe you took a lot longer to grow up than most guys."

"Probably," he said. "Maybe having Mr Middleton there to look after me delayed the process."

"No, sir, I don't think so." I glanced up at him, over my shoulder. "After all, your brother had Mr Middleton looking after him too, and he didn't have the same problem, did he?"

"You're right," Ray laughed. "Vic's never hesitated to get involved with boys who'll stand up to him."

"I think it's just the way you are, sir. It's just the way your mind works." I smiled up at him. "And that's why you need me around."

"Is it?" He slid his arms around my waist, and held me tightly.

"Yes, sir." I nodded, and leaned my head back against his shoulder. "You're a smart guy, and most of the time you're right, sir, but sometimes you're wrong, and that's where you need me to step in."

He nodded, and when he said "I do need you, Lee," I could feel the rumble of his voice in his chest, thrumming against my back. "I don't know what I'd do without you," he said, quieter and softer.

"And that's why I'm going to stick around," I said, firmly, "until the end of the line."

"The end of the line?" Ray tutted. "You're as bad as Mr Middleton. I don't know why everyone's got to be so morbid."

"Everything comes to an end sooner or later, sir." I turned around to face him, but kept his arms around my waist, so that we were clasped together like a couple of dancers. "Nothing last forever, and I don't think you get anywhere pretending like it does, sir."

Ray brought one hand up to the back of my neck and cupped it. I could feel his thumb stroking the edge of my hairline, following the grain of the taper, rubbing the sensitive skin just below it. The way he touched me felt more right than anything I'd ever imagined. How can it be, that someone's hand can make you feel that way? I still don't really understand it, even now. I don't get it, but I love it. I don't need to understand a thing. All I need is the way his hands feel on my skin, the way his arms feel around me, the way his voice sounds when he gives me my orders.

"If I can't have forever, then the end of the line will have to do," he said, tightening his grip. "You're not going anywhere, understand?"

I grinned up at him, and said "Yes, sir."

He looked down at me with a warm, clear smile. "That's my boy."


End file.
